sinnatious | The Fifth Act

Title: The Fifth Act

Rating: T for violence.

Summary: FFVII Time-travel. Gen. Cloud has an accident with a Time Materia.

Author's Note: Thanks for your patience. Final chapter should be out a week from Sunday, barring any unforeseen circumstances.

This chapter is action. Entirely. You guys like action, right?

Previous Chapter

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The Fifth Act
Chapter 37

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The air shivered with the shriek of tearing steel as First Tsurugi cleaved through the railing. Sephiroth dashed to the left and swung at his unprotected flank. Cloud separated his sword and caught the blow, then pulled the second blade free to sweep at the General’s head. He jumped clear, settling atop one of the specimen tanks with unnatural grace. A single silver hair floated to the floor.

“You truly believe you can kill me?” His words were mocking, but his gaze was sharp and assessing. “I don’t think you have it in you, Cloud. If you did, you would have taken your chance in the Midgar Wastes.”

“I’ve killed you before,” he snarled, leaping after him. They danced across the top of the pods, trading strikes. A wild swing left a three-metre long gash in the wall.

“So I am to be punished for crimes I have yet to commit. I thought you were a SOLDIER, not a Turk.” Sephiroth deflected his attacks with ease, carving a wide radius with long, sweeping arcs of his blade.

Cloud didn’t respond. This Sephiroth would never get the chance to threaten the Planet. It wasn’t a risk he was willing to take.

He slashed, met air, then whirled and slashed again. His opponent blocked each strike, but was forced to step back on the last. “You’ve become stronger since we last sparred.” His eyes were narrowed. Suspicious. Accusatory.

“You’ve just become weaker,” he snapped, and drove his sword at his foe’s heart. Sephiroth turned to the side at the last second, sparks flying from Masamune as their blades scraped.

His mistake. Cloud lashed out with his foot, catching him in the stomach with a satisfying thud. The General stumbled back, clutching his ribs, and hastily threw out a Firaga to regroup. A Barrier shimmered into existence before the blond with scarcely a thought. The blazing inferno passed over him like a warm breeze.

The fire hadn’t even cleared before Cloud retaliated in kind. The walls shuddered with thunder as a torrent of lightning lashed through the chamber. At the last minute his target ducked – the spell missed him by a hand’s width and splashed across the ceiling instead. Glass shattered in staccato bursts as a string of light bulbs exploded, raining them with tiny shards. The Reactor plunged into darkness, lit only by the green of mako from the core.

Sight didn’t matter. He could sense Sephiroth clearly – could fight him with his eyes closed. He rushed forward, but the General whirled away at the last moment, taking cover behind one of the specimen tanks.

Of course. He’d forgotten his awareness of Sephiroth was a two-edged sword. His opponent could fight in the dark just as competently.

Cloud leapt clear over the tank, and swore under his breath when the point of his blade cleaved into the floor, empty of prey. Sephiroth had rolled to the side at the last moment, and now backed up the stairs to put some distance between them. “Running away?” he growled, tugging First Tsurugi free. “Hypocrite.”

“Liar,” Sephiroth retorted, drawing the word out. “You lied to all of us, Cloud. Every single day.”

The emergency lights flickered to life at that moment, bringing a dull illumination back to the chamber. In that instant of distraction, Cloud rushed up the stairs with a shout and barrelled into the General, pushing him through the doorway and off the platform connecting to Jenova. He fell, as Zack once had, silver hair and black leather coat folding around him as he plunged to the lower levels.

Sephiroth wouldn’t fall far – the angle was wrong. Cloud dove after him. He might be a liar. He might be a traitor. But he would change everything.

His opponent twisted midair and landed softly on a wide metal beam. He raised Masamune barely in time to catch First Tsurugi. The resonating clang echoed off the Reactor walls, and the beam creaked and groaned under the stress of the impact.

For ten breathless seconds, they teetered in place, suspended above the core. Cloud pushed all of his weight down upon his sword, but with a burst of strength and a twist of his arm, Sephiroth threw him clear. He landed on the wall, knees bent to take the impact, then sprung off it again, breaking First Tsurugi in two to brandish a weapon in each hand.

His foe deflected the first two strikes. The third sliced through arm of his coat.

With a hiss, the General stepped back, driving him away with a wide swing. Cloud backed off, eyes sharp, the drum of his heartbeat quivering in his fingertips. The gash was already closing – Sephiroth always had been abnormally fast with regeneration – but it showed who was in control.

“Things will be different, this time,” he promised. This time it was for real.

Sephiroth simply tilted his head at him, considering. “…You’re not the Cloud Strife I know.”

Fury filled him, sharp and cold, as dozens upon dozens of taunts about his identity, his desires, his hopes and pride and dreams, echoed in his ears. “You’ve never known me!”

Sensing he was outmatched in his current position, Sephiroth jumped to meet his next strike. They leapt from wall to wall, rebounding off pipes and pillars, clashing midair in a blurred flurry of blows. Masamune flashed under the artificial lights, edge tinted green by the ambient glow of mako. Cloud caught every slash with ease, knew every move and every counter.

When they landed before Jenova’s platform once more, it was Sephiroth who was out of breath and faltering under the weight of his sword. His black leather jacket sported several new rips. A drop of blood splashed onto the floor.

No mercy.

He drove the General back under a hail of fire and lightning – away from Jenova, into the tank chamber where they’d begun. At some point, he became peripherally aware that others had entered the Reactor. The awareness lingered for only a moment – a fuzz coloured his thoughts, his vision tunnelled, and it felt like static was flickering across his skin.

Nothing else mattered. His only focus was Sephiroth.

This time, he wouldn’t fail. For the Planet.

………………………

Zack gaped at the unbelievable scene before him. “What’s Cloud doing here?” He’d been unconscious only hours ago, and now he was here fighting the General?

Vincent appeared at his shoulder. He looked grim. More grim than usual, that was.

“Cloud! What’s going on?” Zack shouted, drawing Buster Sword and ready to join the fray if necessary.

The blond showed no sign of even registering his voice. He was attacking with his sword separated in two, whirling and slashing almost faster than the eye could track.

With no response from that quarter, Zack figured he’d try the other party. “Sephiroth?”

“I’m rather busy right now, Zack,” he answered, voice straining with effort as he deflected another blow. Zack stared. He’d never heard the General sound like that. Not even during his and Cloud’s impromptu duels back at ShinRa. He looked a mess, too – his coat sporting several smooth tears, and a line of blood staining his chest from a wound already healed.

This wasn’t right. This wasn’t right at all. He’d come here prepared to fight, but Sephiroth didn’t sound like he was a threat – if anything Cloud was the one acting weird. “We’ve got to stop them.”

“I don’t think we can,” Vincent murmured.

They had to try something. “Cloud! I thought you’d given up with the whole trying to kill Sephiroth thing! Weren’t you guys getting along last time?” he called out.

No response. Not even a flicker. Just the clash and clatter of swords. He felt a pit in his stomach. This was really, really bad. ‘Somebody-was-going-to-die’ kind of bad.

“It’s Jenova.” Vincent’s voice barely carried over the sounds of battle.

“Sephiroth’s crazy not-mother? How?”

“Cloud told me he has her cells too. We were worried about this happening.” He closed his eyes for a moment as though in silent prayer, then raised his gun and pointed it at the blond’s back, his aim wavering as he tracked his movement.

Zack yelped and pushed the barrel to the side. “Put that down! You are way too eager to shoot people!”

Vincent stared at him. “Then what do you suggest we do?”

He had to think fast. “I don’t know, there’s got to be some other way to- hey! Didn’t you say you guys were going to destroy her? Won’t that work? It doesn’t make a difference if it’s Cloud or Sephiroth, right?”

Vincent didn’t reply. Zack took that as a yes. He glanced around, frantically searching for whatever could identify as ‘Jenova’. Not much nearby that he could see except those weird pods filled with mako.

“Sephiroth! We’ve got to take out Jenova! Once she’s gone, he should go back to normal!” Zack yelled over the clanging of swords. Cloud still didn’t react as though he’d heard a word.

Luckily, Sephiroth didn’t appear to need any explanation beyond that. He broke their lock and sped up the steps towards the doorway, silver hair streaming behind him. A blazing Firaga cut him off. Zack’s eyes smarted at the heat. “Sephiroth!”

He shouldn’t have worried – the General came through unbothered by the fire, but it gave Cloud the opening he needed to somersault overhead, striking at his opponent’s neck. Sephiroth ducked, but was driven away by a barrage of lightning-fast follow-up attacks.

“I don’t think he’s going to let me near,” he remarked. Somehow, he managed to sound bemused despite his situation.

Okay then. He knew Jenova was through the doorway, now. Enough information for him. “Then keep him busy, we’ll take care of it!”

Sephiroth didn’t give any outward acknowledgement, but immediately went on the defensive. Zack rested on the balls of his feet, eyes sharp, waiting for an opening. The room they were fighting in wasn’t that large – though a couple more hits to the back wall might change that – but gradually, the General allowed himself to be driven into the right corner.

The stairs were clear! Zack took the opening and dashed up the steps. In less than three seconds he reached the top, darted through the doorway, skidded to a stop, and stared.

Across from him was a raised platform, connected by thick pipes, wide enough for a grown man to stand on. On the platform rested a mako tube, not unlike the one they’d rescued Cloud from five days before. But wrapped around it in protection was something he never expected to see outside one of those occult conspiracy shows - an iron mask and breastplate of a woman, arranged like some technological idol and adorned with wings of tubing and metal.

“No way… This is Jenova?” Zack was stunned, and found himself reluctant to approach. It radiated an intangible menace that made him feel strangely nauseous.

The sudden crack of gunshots from the other room spurred him into action. Whatever it was, it needed to be destroyed – one look could tell him that much. Demolition first, questions later. He lifted Buster Sword from his back.

“Zack!”

Sephiroth’s warning almost came too late. It was pure instinct that had Zack whirl around and catch the blade driving towards him. He slid back half a step under the force the strike. “What the- Cloud?!”

It was the first glimpse he’d caught up close since the blond had awoken. His eyes. They’d changed. They were supposed to be bright blue, not a vivid green with a slitted pupil.

It was the most terrifying sight Zack had seen in all his time as a SOLDIER.

“What did they do to you?” he whispered.

Then Cloud pushed forward, and Zack had to slide to the side or go for a tumble off the edge. “Whoa, come on, Cloud, it’s me!” he begged. “Snap out of it!”

He could see the General approaching to help, but a stream of lightning cut off his approach, and then Zack was too busy dodging and blocking to keep track any further. Shiva, he was strong! Cloud was a slight sort of guy, and the shortest out of the lot of them, but he was matching Angeal’s kind of force! And he was fast. Zack barely held his feet as he parried frantically.

The whole exchange lasted only a matter of seconds. Then with one mighty swing, Cloud sent him flying through the doorway into the previous room.

Wind whistled in his ears as he sailed through the air. He spared a moment, curiously devoid of panic, to remember this was what the fall to Aeris’s Church had felt like.

Then Zack choked as his back slammed into one of the pods, the metal crumpling beneath him. Buster Sword clattered from his grasp, and his vision flashed white.

Sheer determination was all that kept him conscious. He couldn’t afford to pass out here! But it didn’t matter. His body wouldn’t obey him. He couldn’t even move when Cloud’s feet slammed on either side of him and silver steel filled his vision.

Damn. This was it.

Pretty lousy end for a hero. He didn’t even have time to say something cool before he went.

Mentally, he apologised to Aeris, and braced himself.

Then for some odd reason, Zack suddenly thought he could smell flowers.

…………………

Cloud froze, sword poised over his friend’s neck. It was as though time itself had stopped, despite the fact that the hum of the Reactor droned on, and Zack continued to draw breath. After a moment, the black-haired SOLDIER cracked open an eye, looking confused. Neither Sephiroth nor Vincent dared move a muscle.

“Cloud?” he wheezed.

He’s in the way.

No, he couldn’t be. It was Zack. Why was his sword pointed at Zack?

A sacrifice for the Planet.

Stubbornly, Cloud shook his head. Zack watched him with wide eyes.

There had to a different way. Zack could never be a threat to the Planet. This wasn’t right. He was forgetting something. Something important. What was he doing?

A new voice wafted into his thoughts. ‘Have you finally woken up?’

He’d heard that voice many times before. But that couldn’t be right.

"Aeris? How-" She was still alive. She had to be alive!

Zack tensed at the familiar name.

‘Don’t be scared. I’ve become a lot stronger since we last met.’

His head spun. The roar in his ears grew louder.

Save the Planet. The call was insistent, unrelenting. Why would Aeris disagree with the Planet?

She didn’t answer. Somehow, he had the impression she was humming. Then- ‘You said you were a nobody.’

“A nobody?” he murmured.

‘You're not WEAPON or Calamity, right? You're just a nobody. Can a nobody talk to the Planet?’

A chill ran down his spine.

It was true. He’d never spoken with the Planet. Aeris could call him through the Lifestream, could reach out and speak to him through the materia he carried and the mako in his blood, but the Planet itself? He wasn’t like Nanaki. He wasn’t a Cetra, either.

Then whose voice was intruding on his thoughts?

Save the Planet. Destroy them. Destroy ShinRa and the humans who hurt us. It rose in volume, drowning out everything else. Aeris was gone – her presence overpowered and chased away as quickly as it had arrived. But the difference between her comforting touch to this pressure on his mind – he recognised it now. He recognised the way his head felt gripped by a vise, the way electricity seemed to prickle across his skin, the way thinking felt like trying to watch a television with bad reception.

“Jenova,” he rasped.

With a monumental effort, he pulled away from Zack. His friend didn’t move. Probably couldn’t.

They’re traitors. See how they treated you. Treated us.

“Shut up,” he growled, squeezing his eyes shut. “I’m not a monster, like him.” He stumbled up the stairs. Vincent and Sephiroth followed, keeping a wary distance. He barely noticed.

Your father. Kills the Planet, hurt your mother, abandoned you. I would never abandon my son.

The words coiled like a wire around his heart. He staggered up to the dais. “I already have a mother.” He was going to save her. Change everything for her, and his friends.

These people aren’t your friends. That woman is not your mother. She already has a son.

Half in rage, half in panic, he tore away the metal faceplate. Rust-coloured fluid flew through the air as though in slow motion, the metallic screeching as the pipes ripped free grating across his ears.

Then he was there, face to face with her. Nothing but the glass of her tube separating them. Her glowing cat’s eyes open, glazed, lifeless, but somehow still seeing straight into his soul.

We’re the same. You don’t belong, like me.

He trembled.

This isn’t your planet. You don’t owe them anything.

She was clever. Able to find and exploit weaknesses and desires he didn’t even know he had. How could he have forgotten-

You want to destroy Sephiroth, she reminded him.

He did. Very badly.

I’ll help you, she whispered. Images and knowledge flashed before his eyes. The connection. Enough to halt Sephiroth in his tracks for just a minute, to finish the deed. You are the strongest. You can change everything.

His fingers tightened around his sword.

Then Sephiroth appeared out of what seemed to be nowhere. “Allow me to spare you the indecision,” he declared, and smashed Masamune through the glass.

The tank shattered with a deafening crash, shards of it tearing at his arms and legs. Cloud ducked behind First Tsurugi as putrid, discoloured mako splashed over his boots and debris scattered around them. After what felt like an eternity, he chanced a glance over the top of his blade.

Jenova was unprotected – laid bare to the elements, and all the more sickly a sight for it. Sephiroth moved into stance, unmarked by the broken glass or draining mako. “No more hiding behind puppets,” he drawled, raising Masamune to deliver the final strike-

Then stopped.

The moment held. The tip of his sword wavered before Jenova, as though he wished to cut, but couldn’t. His brow tightened in effort and concentration, confusion in his eyes as his arms moved backwards even as he tried to push them forward.

A cruel parody of the scene of Aeris’s murder.

The silence shattered under a sharp bang, and a bullet whizzed past his ear to strike Jenova in the forehead. Vincent, Cloud distantly noted. It didn’t make a difference. Jenova didn’t have a brain anymore, nor a mind in the traditional sense. It was only cells in a certain amount of concentration, passing information.

Kill him. Do it now.

A chance.

“By the Goddess!” A new voice suddenly intruded. “All you want to do is destroy that thing, correct? Are you or are you not SOLDIERs?”

Genesis?

Suddenly, a burst of heat rushed past them. The Firaga exploded in Jenova’s face, throwing him and Sephiroth to the wall. Cloud staggered to his feet, watching in shock as the angry flames rose to the ceiling.

The auburn-haired Commander stood in the doorway, covered in soot and looking incredibly put out. With a vicious sweep of his hand, he cast another Firaga, and then another. Each blast sent out a blazing hot shockwave of air that tousled his hair and burned his eyes.

Cloud seized as an unearthly scream tore at this thoughts. He gasped and dropped to the ground, fingers clutching his head as the pain and fury and betrayal clawed at his heart. It went on and on, drowning out everything else, like red-hot needles in his skull, building and grating and ripping then… silence.

His head felt clearer. Lighter. As though a headache he’d carried for weeks suddenly went away.

Slowly, he turned his gaze to the tube that once housed Jenova.

Nothing but smouldering ashes.

Genesis adjusted his gloves. “Honestly. I’m not sure what I missed, but it wasn’t even a moving target.”

Sephiroth stared at the remains, apparently in as much shock as Cloud. Of course – he would have felt the backlash of Jenova’s fury as well. “The Goddess is cruel, to create such a trial,” he murmured.

She was gone. Jenova was gone. No missing head, no neck, no lingering appendages for remnants to steal. No more Reunion.

And Cloud hadn’t done a thing. Had been reduced to a puppet, once again. He felt ill. It had been up to everyone else to destroy her. Zack was in the next room, badly hurt because of him. Zack, who he’d sworn to protect. And then also, on the way here, Angeal…

He felt hollow – the empty puppet Sephiroth always accused him of being. He was having difficulty processing everything that had just happened. Frantically, he tried to organise his thoughts. The plan. What was the plan? What was it he needed to do now? What was next?

Hojo was dead. Jenova was destroyed.

His hands shook. He clenched them into fists.

“Someone will need to tend to Zack,” Vincent’s low baritone murmured in the background.

Zack dragged himself to the doorway, face slightly pale and hand pressed against his ribs, but otherwise whole. “Don’t worry about me! I’ll hold up for now. Genesis threw a cure at me on his way through. More importantly, we need to do something about Angeal.”

“Angeal?” Genesis’s voice was sharp.

“You didn’t see him on your way up here? I guess you might have taken a different path. He’s hurt, bad.”

There was just one last person who had to die, if he wanted to save everyone. If he wanted to be sure.

No, that wasn’t quite right. Two.

“I fetched the boy to guide me. He’s outside. We went across the bridge, since time seemed to be of the essence.”

“There’s a bridge? Damn, that would have been way faster.”

Cloud slowly stood, steadying himself against the wall.

“What about you Sephiroth? Injuries?” Genesis took charge.

The General gave a slow shake of his head. “Nothing serious.”

He adjusted his grip on First Tsurugi.

“Good. Then does anyone mind explaining what precisely is going on here?”

They wouldn’t understand. But Kunsel knew everything. He’d explain it.

“Even I’m not entirely sure…” Zack trailed off, glancing in his direction. “Cloud?”

One last task he had to complete.

With a war cry, he charged the General.

“Sephiroth!” Genesis shouted.

Sephiroth whirled, unprepared. Vincent cocked his gun and fired. A bullet struck him in the leg – a moment later, another grazed his arm. Cloud ignored it, pressing ahead, bearing down on his target with single-minded determination.

Masamune flashed – a wild, desperate attack to force him off course.

Except Cloud didn’t even try to block it.

The thin steel speared his side but he still didn’t stop, pushing himself forward. He gripped the blade with his left hand – felt it cut into his palm, the blood spill over his fingers, the metal grate against his rib cage. He choked on his breath, and tasted copper. He’d punctured a lung.

“Cloud!” Zack screamed. It sounded like he was shouting from underwater.

Every step was agony, but he grit his teeth and kept moving.

This was how it was supposed to be.

Sephiroth stared at him, an expression flitting across his face the blond had seen only three times before.

Wide-eyed shock, coupled with genuine human fear.

There was a flash of light out the corner of his eyes. Cloud felt the touch of materia brush over him, but it was already too late.

With his remaining strength, he raised First Tsurugi for the last strike.

Next chapter

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From: (Anonymous)

I hope you don't mind me repeating just how awesome I think your parallelisms are.

/coherent

LAKHLKADHGOIHOHORRH OMG CLOUD! NOOOOO, IT'S OVER! STOPSTOPSTOPSTOPSTOPSTOPSTOPSTOPSTOP! Damn good thing Cloud doesn't have a Ribbon anymore.

Holy shit , no joke about All. That. Action.

/flail

From:

ixtey.livejournal.com

Holy shit , no joke about All. That. Action.

for some irrational reason, this has me ROFLing. XD Looking back at sin's "You guys like action, right?" after having read all that makes me see the cautious tone in her a/n. :))

From:

fateofshadow.livejournal.com

O_O

*Shakes you* DON'T LEAVE IT THERE, HOW COULD YOU~! *rocks self* Happy place, happy place...

From:

ixtey.livejournal.com

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF SOMEHOW I KNEW SOMETHING LIKE THIS WOULD HAPPEN. YOU YOU YOU CLOUD YOU ANGST-BOY YOU EVEN MORE MELODRAMATIC THAN GENESIS YOU ARGHH ADKLJSAODKL

Figures. I faintly remember Technoromanticism. In which Tezuka dies. :/ And Stalking the Angel. In which something bad happens, but I can't remember what. WAIT, I SUDDENLY DO. SO THAT'S WHY THIS WHOLE SUICIDE THING SOUNDS FAMILIAR TO ME.

I kind of realized that I should've lowered my expectations of a sappy-happy ending. Queen of Tragedy (http://sinnatious.livejournal.com/62125.html), indeed. XD

But but but I'd have to say if there was something that made me crack up here it was Genesiiiis. asjkdhlasd Genesis why so awesome ♥♥♥

I do hope that when Cloud goes to the Life Stream he gets scolded by Aeris. Scolded real good. :PP aklsdjlkas and speaking of Aeris, she's also made of awesooome. I wonder how she got her powers of awesomeness back? *u*

_{there could also be an off-chance happy ending happening as we really don't know what will happen to Cloud's soul after he dies and shizz like that, but I'm kinda skeptical over whether a happy ending would happen. We've got way too much emo already in Cloud, here. XD}

tl;dr. This fic rocks. to exponential proportions. Waiting so bad for the next chapter. 8D

From:

ixtey.livejournal.com

'Your father. Kills the Planet, hurt your mother, abandoned you.'

This sentence has me confuzzled.

And I just have to add that this
'A cruel parody of the scene of Aeris’s murder. '

tore at me so much. I've just witnessed that scene on FFVII, so askdjasdkldf. woe woe woe.

The Fifth Act - Chapter 37

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