Beloved, Chapter 27

[sinnatious]

Title: Beloved

Rating: for violence, language, slash.


Summary: VII, post DoC. Genesis/Cloud, one-sided Tifa/Cloud. It all starts when Cloud tries to leave during the middle of a Loveless performance.


Author’s Note: Look Ma, no cliffhanger!  Just the epilogue left now.  Urgh, and just in time, too, work is absolutely kicking my ass at the moment, it's going to be a tiring month.

Shouldn't be any surprises in here really, but I hope you enjoy the chapter!

Thanks as always to Little House for the beta.


Previous chapter

____________________

Beloved Chapter 27

____________________

There was only darkness, silence, and the vague, unsettling echo of foreign emotions beyond. Flashes of knowledge and insight that processed with stunning slowness. And above all else… numbness. Exhaustion.

Sleep.

Until, without any warning, Cloud jolted awake.

Light burst across his eyes, sensory input flooding in. Air prickled against wet skin, blood roared in his ears, the stale mix of concrete dust and the sharp tang of copper slammed into his sinuses like a truck.

He gasped, stumbling forward as the world spun dizzyingly. His stomach lurched, but almost immediately calmed, a curiously clean feeling washing through him, like a cool breeze on a sunny day. Something about it felt oddly familiar.

His vision cleared, Cloud blinking away the blurriness, until the crimson smear in front of him resolved into a man. “…Genesis?” His voice came out hoarse, crackling around the edges.

He was answered with a lopsided smirk. “Wet hair,” Genesis croaked, “is a good look for you.”

And then dropped to his knees, arm pressed tightly against his side.

His side that was soaked in blood.

Everything flooded back in that moment. Jenova cells. The falling curtain of darkness. The choking, drowning sensation, as he struggled to fight, only to find he had nothing left to fight with.

Sephiroth.

Odin, what had he done? “Genesis!” Cloud rushed to catch him before he could collapse to the ground.

“Just a scratch,” Genesis rasped. “Not nearly enough to kill a SOLDIER.”

Cloud’s stomach churned. There was so much blood, the wound so deep, like he’d almost been sliced in half. “Materia!” he demanded, near frantic. This scenario had become far too common of late, but it didn’t get any easier.

Genesis fumbled, nearly dropping the glowing sphere, his gloves slick with blood. Cloud snatched it from his hands, pouring energy into it. Years of practice was all that kept him from overloading the spell in haste.

“Weiss,” Genesis urged, voice growing faint and eyelids drooping.

The materia flared, and green light struggled to seal the wound. “Weiss?” Cloud asked distractedly, already starting up another spell.

“You have to…” His words dissolved into a pained hiss.

Cloud fired off the second spell, watching anxiously as the magic did its work. Still not enough – he needed a high-level spell, not a quick Cure. He gathered his waning energy, marshalling his concentration for another cast.

He’d barely started when his shoulder muscles tensed, as a second, intangible awareness pricked at the back of his thoughts.

Cloud paused, and the spell withered. He carefully slipped the materia onto Genesis’s palm, curling his fingers protectively around it.

Boots scuffed against the concrete behind him.

Cloud spun around.

To the sight of steel driving towards his face.

He flung up his hand on reflex, trying to knock the block aside. Masamune stabbed his palm, slicing through his hand, and then his shoulder.

“Did you think you’d won?” Sephiroth taunted, the words sharp and vicious as knives. “You’ve achieved nothing.”

Cloud didn’t think – just acted, his body moving long before his mind had the chance to register it. Panic, maybe. Pain. Adrenaline. Rage. Fear.

“Why won’t you stay gone?” he snarled, grabbing the flat of the blade with his other hand and yanking it clear. Blood spilled from his arm and shoulder, a flash of heat that he barely noticed. He didn’t stop, swinging through – sharp, wild punches that drove Sephiroth back, away.

“I’ll never be gone,” Sephiroth replied. “My shadow is burned onto your heart. You’ll call me back, again and again.” He swiped with Masamune. Cloud dropped, hand braced on the ground, as steel whistled across the top of his head. He launched himself forward, feet first in a bastardised version of Tifa’s Dolphin Kick. His heel crunched into Sephiroth’s jaw, sending him staggering.

Genesis was lying on the ground behind him, covered in blood, because Cloud hadn’t been strong enough to fight off Sephiroth. He would do anything to put that right.

“Then I’ll stop you as many times as it takes!”

……………….

Genesis tried to track the battle through blurry vision. Splotches of darkness crawled in the edges, but he forced them back through sheer stubbornness. He was a SOLDIER First Class. He would not pass out from blood loss.

The Restore materia sat heavy in his palm, a ball of lead where warm marble should be. He tore his gaze away from the black shadows dancing back and forth through the demolished level, focusing his attention on it.

From the deepest, darkest depths of his reserves, he managed to coax one more spell from the materia. The green light flared – weakly, but he only needed enough to hold him together. Enough to get moving, to banish the pain to the point where he could ignore it.

The Restore dropped from his fingers, tumbling across the cracked concrete with a glassy ring. Genesis took a deep breath. It sent spears of pain digging into his side, but it was dry, and came clean.

He rolled to his good side, placed his hands on the floor, and with agonising slowness, pushed himself to his feet. A flash of crimson steel glinted in the corner of his vision, catching the afternoon sun. His rapier. He stumbled towards it, grabbing the hilt in a clumsy grip.

Somehow, he managed to bring himself upright. He braced himself against one of the surviving pillars.

The ground shuddered beneath his feet as Cloud slammed his fist into the concrete, sending showers of dust and grit cascading from the ceiling and fresh cracks running along the floor. Sephiroth responded with a whirl of flashing silver, but Cloud dove through it, inside his guard in an eye blink, swinging into an uppercut that didn’t connect, whirling and kicking and grappling like his fists were made of knives. One arm was completely covered in blood, and he didn’t even seem to register it.

It was wild. Ferocious. Vicious, efficient, brutal, and elegant all at once.

Genesis realised that this was the first time he’d seen Cloud Strife fight with his back truly against the wall. With no weapons, no backup, no plan. Just desperate self-preservation.

It no longer seemed so surprising that this man defeated Sephiroth as a mere trooper.

It was time to finish this. “Cloud!” He tossed his rapier overhead, biting down against the flash of agony in his side.

Cloud snatched it out of the air and swung down. Steel crashed against steel, sending sparks flying and the metallic clash echoing through the tower.

With a blade in his hand, it was over astonishingly quickly. Cloud parried, then struck, and struck again, driving his enemy back with every step.

Then with one blow, knocked Masamune from his grip, and slammed Sephiroth against a pillar.

The katana spun across the concrete. Cloud levelled the rapier at Sephiroth’s heart.

And stopped moving.

Genesis stumbled towards them, alarm flooding his veins with adrenaline. Sephiroth couldn’t, surely he didn’t still have a hold, not after the water-

“What’s the matter, Cloud?” he purred. He tilted his head in mock contemplation, silver hair falling to the side. “Did you forget? You can’t hurt this body. Because then you’d be killing poor, innocent Weiss, who you’ve worked so hard to save.” His gaze narrowed, half-lidded and sultry. “Just like poor Genesis couldn’t bring himself to kill you, and paid for it.”

“Shut up,” Cloud growled. The tip of the rapier pierced Sephiroth’s skin, sending a trickle of blood running down his chest.

“Idiot,” Genesis breathed. “Don’t listen to him.” He went unheard. Why didn’t Cloud just end it already, while he still had the upper hand?

“You don’t have the nerve,” goaded Sephiroth. “Genesis would never forgive you. He’s all you have left, isn’t he? A broken, insane SOLDIER, who’s an even bigger failure than you.”

“Shut up! Genesis!” Cloud shouted.

He didn’t know, Genesis realised with a lurch.

He didn’t know that there was no water left. Hadn’t noticed the bucket rolling off to the side, the last few drops soaking uselessly into the concrete. Hadn’t registered the water dripping from his hair. Hadn’t yet realised how Genesis had broken Sephiroth’s hold on him.

He was still fighting to save Weiss.

Out of Cloud’s sight, wisps of dark miasma began to curl in Sephiroth’s hand.

There was no time.

Genesis threw himself towards them, and slammed his hand against the rapier’s hilt.

The blade drove deep, until it struck the steel core of the column. Cloud jerked away, shock and confusion written across his face.

Sephiroth only stared at him, wide-eyed.

His image wavered, wisps of darkness seeming to evaporate from his very skin.

And then he vanished. Leaving only Weiss, impaled on a crimson blade.

For one long moment, the Tsviet’s didn’t move. Then his hand, patched with grey, twitched at his side. The head of spiky-white hair rolled slightly, bright, glowing gaze sluggishly rising to settle on Genesis’s face.

Weiss’s mouth parted, and his arm half-rose, as though to reach for him. Followed by his voice, scratchy, and weak as a whisper. “Brother…”

Then fell limp, and silent. The glow in his eyes faded, and his body sagged.

“Forgive me,” Genesis murmured, and pulled the rapier free. “May the Goddess guide you to the Promised Land.” He moved to catch the body before it could collapse to the ground.

Cloud stared. “Why-?”

“The water was gone,” Genesis replied. Gently, he laid Weiss out, running a hand across his face to close his eyes. If it weren’t for his wounds, and the sickly colour of his skin, he might have been sleeping. “There was no other choice.”

There had never been a choice. Weiss had been lost the very moment Sephiroth took over Cloud. Even if he’d spent the water on him, Sephiroth would have simply killed them both in the end. Genesis had only been in denial, had only fought to buy to time to try to think of another solution.

“The water…” The following silence was thick with horrified realisation.

Genesis closed his eyes, and slumped against the concrete column, sliding down until he rested on the floor. As the adrenaline receded, he was left only with cold weariness and the burning pain of half-healed wounds.

“I’m sorry,” murmured Cloud. “This was my fault. Because I couldn’t stop him-”

“Don’t take credit for my failures, Cloud Strife,” Genesis snapped. “And don’t you dare make my sacrifice in vain.”

Cloud fell silent. Peripherally, Genesis was aware of him sliding down the column to sit perpendicular to him. “You didn’t fail.”

“Spare me your patronising lies. I don’t require them.”

The silence stretched a little longer this time. Cloud tilted his head back. They both avoided looking at Weiss’s eerily still body. Up so high, in the middle of the Midgar, patched with Geostigma… it wouldn’t dissipate into the Lifestream anytime soon.

“I’m still sorry,” Cloud repeated, his voice low and rough. “I know that before, I was willing to… but I really did try. To save him, I mean. I didn’t want this to happen.”

This was not a conversation he wanted to have. Not so soon. “You have nothing to explain.” After all, the idiot had very nearly put himself in harm’s way again in the effort.

Cloud hung his head. He seemed to dither for a moment, before murmuring, “Then… thanks, I guess. You shouldn’t have had to choose. But… thanks.”

Genesis huffed out a half-hearted laugh. It tasted bitter on his tongue. “Do not thank me for that, Cloud Strife. You know as well as I do that there was no choice.”

“I know. But still… I wouldn’t have blamed you. If you chose Weiss anyway.”

Genesis scoffed, and turned his head away. “You underrate your importance, Cloud Strife.” They would have to discuss that, at some point. He sighed, staring into the distance. “…Perhaps I was simply in denial. Perhaps he was a lost cause from the very start. You may not be aware, but the Deep Ground Uprising was his idea, at least initially.” He stripped the gloves from his hands – so soaked in blood as to be useless – and tossed them carelessly aside. “In the end, was it really Weiss I was seeking to redeem? Or merely myself?”

Now he would never know. Another eight years, to be haunted by what-ifs.

It was an unpleasant notion, and one he didn’t care to dwell on. Genesis rolled his head back, eyeing Cloud’s left arm. Stabbed right through the palm and shoulder, and still bleeding. How he’d fought with it defied belief, even for a SOLDIER. “You should get a Cure on that.”

“It’s fine. What about you?” Cloud sounded more tired than accusing. “Those Cures weren’t nearly enough to fix your injuries.”

He glanced at the Restore materia. It rested at least five body lengths away, glowing innocently in the shadow of one of the other surviving pillars. “I don’t care enough to move.”

Cloud grunted, but he didn’t move either.

They sat there for what seemed like an eternity, as the sun slowly sank into the horizon. Their shoulders barely touching, and only the gradually steadying draw of their breath breaking the silence.

They were both streaked with blood and dirt. Genesis’s coat was ruined, most likely beyond repair this time, and Cloud’s shirt was in tatters. Under other circumstances, he might have appreciated the look. Currently, he didn’t have the energy to spare.

“Sephiroth was right, you know,” Genesis eventually confessed into the silence. “I am broken. I merely act at being sane and whole.”

Cloud shifted in place. It wound up pressing their shoulders and arms together, the warmth a stark contrast with the cold, gritty concrete. “…It’s not like you’re the only one, you know. Vincent has issues. So do I. I don’t remember much, but even Zack, towards the end…” He trailed off. “…I don’t think SOLDIER left anyone whole.”

And that right there was why he would have chosen Cloud, if there had ever truly been a choice. Never in his wildest dreams, when he’d been wasting away within the Banora crater, had he ever believed that there might be someone else who could understand.

Had he not blown it entirely, of course. Sephiroth’s taunts still echoed in the back of his mind. How Genesis had been the last, the most personal, in a long string of betrayals.

That Cloud had fought to save Weiss, though, even after Sephiroth’s possession… some hope remained, if only a sliver.

That contemplation, however, brought up another exhausting thought. “Is he gone, now? That was surely the last of the Jenova cells, wasn’t it?” He frowned, thinking of Weiss. “Or do we have to worry about any other surviving SOLDIERs or Tsviets?”

It took a long time for Cloud to answer. “I don’t know for sure,” he eventually admitted. “But I don’t think so. He felt… desperate. Like he’d staked everything on this.” He ran his uninjured hand through his hair. “I wasn’t fully aware, but I could… feel it, I guess. Through the bond.” He took a long, deep breath. “Every time he comes back, there’s less of him. The Lifestream… it’s chipping him away.”

Genesis made a sound of amusement in his throat, though could not summon the feeling that went with it. “Willpower is a finite resource, after all.”

And Sephiroth was finally running out.

The sun sank out of sight, turning the sky an array of dusky reds and purples.

“…We should move,” Genesis said, though didn’t back up his words with any action.

“Right,” Cloud agreed. “Tifa will be worried. And the Turks and WRO will mobilise if we don’t report back.”

He didn’t move either.

They sat there until Midgar grew dark, keeping silent vigil over Weiss’s body. Until the early hours of the morning, when at last he began to dissipate into motes of green light, and the Lifestream reclaimed yet another forsaken child.

Only when the last of the green had faded did Genesis stir. In the intervening hours, mako had almost made up for the lack of a Cure. “Come, Cloud Strife. There is work yet to be done. I don’t care to be hunted by the Turks yet again.” He tugged at his torn shirt. The material clung unpleasantly to his skin, glued there by dried blood. “If you have the strength to spare, that Water materia of yours could be useful, too.”

Cloud sighed. “I’ll be there in a jiffy.”

Genesis groaned. “Sometimes, you almost have me convinced to take you seriously, then you say something so phenomenally insipid.”

Cloud responded by dumping half a bathtub’s worth of water over his head.

There was, perhaps, some hope left indeed. Even if Genesis no longer felt he deserved it.

Next chapter

Comments

[sinnatious.livejournal.com]

XD I used to think it would never happen, but then FF13-2 happened! So the hope is not zero.

Heh, well, Square has at least a couple of scenario writers with serious guts, so... there have been so many takes on time travel in FF7 fandom though, I feel like they couldn't possibly surprise us!

[(Anonymous)]

hearing about the plot of FF13-2 was what made me think "oh, now this one too, please!" :D

who knows what they are focusing on now, though

we won't find out until E3 :(

[sinnatious.livejournal.com]

Lightning Returns most probably, maybe an FF15 announcement considering PS4 is announced and Square has a long track record of announcing FFs years in advance? That's my prediction anyway. I'm hoping for FF Versus 13 but suspect it has become vaporware.

Also maybe that long-rumoured Kingdom Hearts 3.