childrenofbahamutlogs | Howling and Hollow (Cloud Catch-All)

More mysteries. As if they never end, it seems there may be more problems in Cloud's timeline at play if the Weapons are already awake. Sephiroth has no idea of Whispers either. Something Cloud mentally puts a pin in.

"Aerith..." the blond says softly, eyes widening. So he was out of control in both instances. But something bothers him- the fact he was able to snap out of it just in the nick of time in the alleged other timeline. No, in his own he became a machine, slicing and stabbing through the troopers in his way with a precision and brutality that in hindsight startles him. He can remember Tifa crying out for him to stop, that it was more than enough. When it comes to other human beings in the combat mix, Cloud tries to fight to incapacitate at best and makes things quick at worst. Clearly he is just more broken in this timeline. That has to be it, to have been smooth-talked into believing Tifa, his childhood best friend, was a fake. She has no scar he said, the rest melding into a blur (including the moment where Tifa indeed showed the scar from the Incident). So he's weaker. More dangerous in his own timeline.

Pieces, patience...It all frustrates Cloud, but the offer of something, finally, has his full attention. Sephiroth seems to mean well (what a bizarre thought), so for now, he accepts, with a nod. He will be patient. He just doesn't have to love the circumstances.

Cloud winces as he tries to think back to that specific time between Nibelheim and his mission with Avalanche. It has always been a nondescript haze, and the familiar, sickening tinge of mako-green clouds his vision when he digs too deep. His brows knit, a quiet, sharp exhale indicating the discomfort of it. Four years. It's a long time to lose.

"I just...Remember being stabbed. By you. Passing out. Then...hitching a ride on top of a train. Four years later. I used to tell myself it was just boring things and thats why." Denial, in a way, given the literal mental block that's always been there. "Just did merc work or something."

Edited 2024-12-10 14:31 (UTC)

"There is good reason you don't remember much of it. And as you might imagine, that time being boring would have been far preferable to the reality." He pauses, feeling out in his own mind how would be best to proceed.

"You don't remember it yet, but...you have personal experience with Professor Hojo." And he decides to drop a small bombshell - one that doesn't affect Cloud much, but one he supposes Cloud deserves to know, all the same. "My father."

Still...he can't look at Cloud as he says the words, directing his gaze away. The way his lips are compressed in the thinnest of lines communicates just how much he loves that fact...although, as it happens, Cloud also has some actually clear memories of Sephiroth talking about how pathetic and awful Hojo is, so he might even have known without the look on Sephiroth's face.

There's little he hates more than having any connection to Hojo at all.

"Of course you realize that when our group failed to report back from Nibelheim, ShinRa would investigate. Perhaps losing an entire squad might not have mattered to them, but the disappearance of their prize SOLDIER, their perfect weapon...it demanded an investigation. And as the man in charge of the project that created me, Hojo came to Nibelheim personally. Mostly they found corpses...but they also found people like you, injured or dying, but still alive. And when presented with a bunch of people he concluded no one would miss...Hojo was only capable of doing one thing." He closes his eyes. "Everyone who wasn't killed by me at Nibelheim...was turned into one of his experiments. And either out of spite at the loss of his pet project, in some strange bid to replace me, or simply out of his own ghoulish curiosity...what Hojo experimented on you and the others with was my DNA. He had harvested enough of it from me over the years. He injected all of you with it."

He meets Cloud's gaze again. "That is the connection between us you feel. That is the voice in your head you hear. It may take my voice and form to you, but...what you are experiencing is Jenova. Hojo infected you with it...with me. And like me...it is capable of, at times, conquering your mind and dictating your actions. You in particular may be more susceptible than most to its voice, with the way your mind and memory have fragmented; that uncertainty and doubt is ample fodder for Jenova to manipulate you, even at a low concentration. I likely have the greatest concentration of Jenova within me of anyone living, and yet it never took over my mind or my actions until I had a breakdown of my own."

He breathes out. "So while you may well be terrified of the influence it has over you, especially now that you know what it is...take comfort in that within my timeline, untangling the confusion of your memory essentially removed that ability for Jenova to exploit you. Certainly you never fell prey to it again, and there were many opportunities and reasons for it to try pushing you. That is our goal here, as well - to help you piece things together until you are truly sure of yourself - and it will likely shut out Jenova's influence in the same way. Your vulnerability to it is not permanent."

He holds Cloud's gaze. "But that is the truth of that period in your life. You spent much of the four years after Nibelheim floating in a tank of mako, in Hojo's lab in the Nibel manor. Another SOLDIER - one of our squad that was captured alongside you - escaped, and helped you to do so as well. And you needed the assistance, because you had an intense case of mako poisoning and were borderline comatose. I don't believe you fully emerged from your daze until you actually reached Nibelheim...until you met Tifa again."

There's so many hypothetical truths that Cloud Strife worried over, braced for, so many scenarios he played out in his mind knowing only hints and indications that something was horribly wrong from the others.

None of them could have prepared him for this particular truth. Or how sickeningly, perfectly well it slots in to the timeline of his fragmented memories. Or how much more horrifying it all becomes knowing Hojo did what he did to his own son. That fucking bastard. It's easily clear just what Sephiroth thinks of him, and Cloud is stunned at the man's ability to sink even lower than impossibly low.

"I- you-" Cloud feels his mind recoiling and fraying around the edges as vague, suppressed memories bubble up. Cold, cold, it's so cold, he's on a table, doesn't know where he is or what is happening, all he knows is the agony and pain and a figure standing above him with some manner of surgical tool, a needle, and a stomach-turning grin. It hurts. It hurts. Cloud staggers backwards with a hand up to his forehead, like he's been physically stricken. His eyes go wide, mouth twisting into a painful, shocked grimace as he doubles over.

Then another scene comes into focus. The entire world around him is silent, tinged with blue-green. He's floating, trapped, losing himself over and over again, every last ounce of fight and fortitude in his mind succumbing to the mako poisoning and something far more sinister. There's another thing he knows he's forgetting. Something or someone he so desperately tries to hold onto in those last, flickering moments.

Sephiroth didn't just suddenly go mad- it was Jenova, finally able to exert it's will, so eerily much like it did to Cloud himself in Gongaga. Jenova, who is in them both. Sephiroth is not just deeply woven into his life's path, but a part of him. He is drawn to the silver, in ways that finally have an explanation. It's horrible. It hurts.

He is likely more susceptible. It isn't permanent. Goals to move forward. Cloud hears the words Sephiroth says, and will remember them- but as it is now all he can do is fall to his knees, both hands now gripping desperately at his hair beneath his horns. Tears sting at the corners of his eyes, but the only sound he makes is one of choked pain.

This too shall pass- as all Cloud has and will one day endure does- but right now, the burden of truth is absolutely crushing. Even just part of it.

Sephiroth knows, knows, that he is likely to get a negative response here. That if he goes to Cloud, tries to comfort him, that Cloud is likely to reject him, maybe even violently - from the old trauma from Nibelheim, from the old-made-new trauma of this realization and their grim connection, from just being the (perceived) source of this new misery, from simply not being able to handle any more than he already is. Any or all of those things. The reasons Cloud could have for actually accepting concern for and closeness from him are perishingly few, the reasons he would shove Sephiroth away from him - physically and/or figuratively, and shoving is probably the best case scenario - overwhelmingly numerous and persuasive.

Sephiroth knows all this, and moves forward anyway. He can't not.

He kneels down in front of Cloud, lightly touching his arms. "I know." He knows better than perhaps anyone might, he supposes, except perhaps Zack or the other victims who survived Nibelheim. "But you're all right now, Cloud. He's not here..."

Cloud has endured a whole lot in isolation since arriving to this world. His painful dragon changes, adapting to a new lifestyle, finding work, living day to day- all done in solitude that felt jarring after traveling with people (Who he now fully realizes are important friends) for a long time. Any solace his dragon soul could have offered to this point, stifled, as Cloud actively tried to lock him away in fear of his voice being just another intruder in a fractured mind.

Perhaps it is loneliness and a desperate need for human closeness in any capacity that, despite everything, keeps him from recoiling from the gentle reassurance that Sephiroth offers. Perhaps instead it is because Cloud is so immersed in those new, desolate memories, that he cannot fully see what is happening in the present reality. Perhaps...Hidden hopes that alighted in the man since the talk in the chicken pen overpower the likely trauma response. It could even be all of the above, probably is.

Whatever the reason, Cloud flinches from the touch to his arms, but does not react violently. Instead, he whimpers again, shaking his head. He's so stiflingly vulnerable like this, even moreso as his glazed-over eyes turn up to look directly through Sephiroth. The touch works as an anchor, and through the haze Cloud tries to mentally reach for it. A fraction of the immense tension leaves his body.

I know. You're all right now.

That's the voice of his hero. Of his-

It is gentle, and saying something so different than the voice that drives him to rage or madness. Or the frigid tones edged with mania of the man who destroyed his home and his life. The tears begin to fall freely. Cloud speaks with a tone that is so very, very small. Frightened. Lost. The voice of a bright young cadet whose hopes and dreams were shattered to pieces.

"It's real. It was all real. Four years, four whole years, it hurts- who was I? Who am I???"

Edited 2024-12-15 11:50 (UTC)

"Cloud Strife." Sephiroth says the name softly. "A young boy from Nibelheim who struggled to make friends, but wanted them - and who also wanted to make a difference in the world. That is who you've always been, isn't it? And none of that has ever truly changed. No presence in your head, nothing that Hojo could do to you, could erase that. Even if you lose sight of it in the fog, the core of you remains there, waiting to be found again."

Cloud Strife. His name. That's his name. Always has been. Before, and after those four years. A quiet, lonely boy with a heart too big for his own good, and no real understanding on how to express it. One who hardened his heart to keep it safe, one who dreamed to change the world just like his hero. His hero, who is right here, and sees him in a way he's not felt (or at least thinks he's felt) since befriending Tifa in Nibelheim. Past the posturing, past the self-defending fronts, and past his own shattered sense of self.

Cloud needs more of that anchor. That steadiness. That contact bringing him back to the world around him. Something he's missed dearly since leaving home. One of his arms lowers, falls limp to his side, then reaches out after a few beats. Reaches, and lifts Sephiroth's hand from atop the other arm to grasp onto it. It's warm, and real, and contrasts just enough from the freezing mako tank and laboratory table to start to lift Cloud back into reality. There's a faint stirring, a flicker of light in his teary eyes, proof of that.

"Cloud....I'm Cloud..." Whispered like a prayer. "I'm real. I was real, am real. I-" a choked sound. He sees mako around him again, but the scene is less vivid. Flickering. Trees appear in the peripheral. Trees were never in the manor. "I'm... scared."

Sephiroth is certainly surprised when Cloud grips his hand, but...he's not about to protest. He grips the man's hand firmly, recognizing he's being used as an anchor and trying to provide all the steadiness that implies.

"It's all right," he murmurs. "It's all right to be scared. But also...know that you're safe. Know that there are people here who will help you, whatever challenges and fears you face. And know that, indeed, you are real. You always have been. No matter what Jenova says or does, it isn't you. It will try to blur the lines, but you are separate from it."

Cloud gives Sephiroth's hand a squeeze. Takes in a shuddering breath. He's on the lab table again, but the image of Hojo above him is shuddering, as though coming apart at the edges. More and more trees break in to the picture, allowing the man to tease apart that this is a vision on top of reality. Wherever the trees are, that is where he needs to be. Where he actually is.

He needs to follow the feeling of a grip around his hand. The warmth of it, something he hasn't felt in a good long while. It is, truly, just the anchor he needs. Sephiroth's words that follow, even more so.

The kind of comfort he hasn't heard or felt since he had family around him, as far as he can remember. But now, those words come from his hero. Sephiroth tells him he's real and always has been, and that being afraid is okay.

It may as well be every dream he ever had, fulfilled. Time will tell if it stays that way when Cloud fully comes to, and realizes just what is going on, and with who.

"I'm not there right now, am I?"

More of the memories fall away. Reality presses just around the seams of it all. He's drawing near it.

"Of course not." Sephiroth tries to make his voice as soothing as possible. He's not sure that comforting people has ever been a skill he's excelled at, but he draws on as much of his years of experience with Angeal as possible. Angeal knows how to comfort people. If he can mimic him well enough... "You're here, with me."

And while to Cloud that might qualify as its own nightmare, Sephiroth honestly thinks that for anyone who's been subject to Hojo, even his murderous self when puppeted by Jenova would be considered a marked improvement. And Cloud...genuinely does seem to recognize that he isn't Jenova, either. He simply hopes that Cloud holds on to that awareness while his mind is already under such strain.

Here. Here, with him. Where is here? Here, where those trees are. Away from the mako, away from Hojo, away from the pain, with his hero, who holds his hand and speaks so gently. Here sounds okay, better than whatever hell this is.

Cloud wants to be here. Maybe even here with Sephiroth. Vulnerable and broken as he is now, much that he's buried deep has come to the surface- including that past dream, and how much Sephiroth meant to him before his entire world ended by his idol's hand. Emotions swirl in a roiling mess, that want clashing and fighting with feelings of hate and fear that the mercenary had grown so used to associating with the silver for the past few years. Or so he thought it was years...It never was that long, not even close. While what he sees before his eyes was real once, it is not real now. That is what makes everything start to truly unravel.

As the vision wavers again, Cloud makes a point to focus on the trees, to push his mind towards them, and away from the nightmarish loop he seems to be trapped in. He follows Sephiroth's voice, pushes just the slightest bit further...

...It all falls away. Suddenly he is in the woods, on his knees, Sephiroth seated in front of him. Cloud does not move to pull his hand away, or move much at all. Instead, he stares at Sephiroth with stunned, more lucid eyes- and a light blush on his cheeks. The absolute instant he recognizes the prickling heat, his focus moves to the ground as he looks away. There is a lot to unpack, considering how Sephiroth made good to his word, and supported him through the first step in recovering his memories.

"...Yeah. I'm here. Pretty sure."

No negative reaction. No fear, no anger. Cloud seems to have retained his awareness that Sephiroth is on his side here, and that's no small thing under the circumstances. Sephiroth relaxes minutely.

"I'm sorry," he murmurs. "You deserve to know these things - perhaps need to - but I recognize perhaps better than anyone else how traumatic such knowledge can be." His gaze darkens slightly. "To realize the extent to which you were used, and victimized...how much of your life isn't as you thought it was. There is no gentle way to share such information, and likely no easy way to receive it, but...knowing the effect it could have, I've done my best to make it easier."

Sephiroth doesn't think he necessarily deserves any understanding for the mental break he'd experienced at Nibelheim - not, at least, in consideration to what his breakdown had led to. It's easy to extend compassion for weakness when weakness isn't synonymous with catastrophe, but when it is...well, he had been the dam that failed. No matter how much pressure he was under, his failure had killed so many downstream for him, and it was for their sake more than his own that it had been important for him to remain strong. He had never been in a position where it was safe for him to fall apart, and he'll live with the consequences for the rest of his life. In that, he's luckier than most of his victims.

But maybe...Cloud can have that safety, at least. Maybe Cloud can break down, and build himself back up, without any deeper horror or regret. And whether Sephiroth deserves it or not, Sephiroth supposes Cloud can't help but see, in this, something of what Sephiroth endured himself. It's not an excuse, and never can be, but perhaps at least...it can make understanding easier.

Though, as far as that goes...perhaps understanding his nightmare will only make it more distressing. Not that there's much Sephiroth can do about that.

"Can you stand?" He feels some small return to normalcy, to control, may help Cloud here.

Control- something Cloud has had taken away from him so much now, even without him knowing in the most dire cases- is absolutely something that helps return some semblance of stability to him when offered by Sephiroth. Control, agency, the choice to pull himself back together. Not just out of obligation to the Planet, or his friends, but for him. It is grounding.

Loss of control is, in many ways, a thread that connects Sephiroth and Cloud. The thought crosses the merc's mind vaguely as the painful haze begins to clear. He can remember- or maybe it isn't his own memory- when Sephiroth learned a horrible truth all too similar to his own. Of evil wrought from the very same source. How he broke down, and how Cloud's own living hell began. As much as it would be so easy to just continue to hate Sephiroth with all his being, and only remember the flames swallowing up his home...He cannot help but consider that perhaps his hero was suffering, too. It certainly does not forgive his actions, but at the very least, gives Cloud pause. In the end, it makes Sephiroth just that much more human in his eyes. Further teases apart Jenova, the monster, from the man standing before him with concern written ever-so-vaguely on his features. Against all odds and against all Cloud knows, Sephiroth seems to care about him. Again. It was not a one-off thing. That apology, and those gentle words ring as genuine.

How? How could he care this much? No amount of guilt or wish for repentance could ever bring a man to be this drawn to someone, not this organically. Could it?

They are still holding hands. Cloud decides to play it off, say nothing about it, and use Sephiroth as a brace. Even if the silver stays kneeling, he can reasonably hold on for most of the way, given their height difference. So he tries, slowly working his way to standing on wobbly legs. Once he's steady enough to feel confident, he lets go, and straightens up. He chalks up the pang he feels over their hands parting as another symptom of his loss of stability.

"...Guess so. Not the first headache I had to deal with." He pauses. "As if Hojo needed to give me more reasons to hate him. Now Red is gonna need to leave some for me when we kick his ass." If he gets home. Or, when.

Sephiroth, of course, rises with Cloud. His hand remains rock-steady in Cloud's the entire time, letting the blond brace himself as much as he needs. His hand, when released, lowers - slowly - to his side again.

"For whatever it's worth, in my world - my timeline - your group does kill him." Sephiroth sighs. "I wish I could find any satisfaction in that, but he was - will be, I suspect, in any timeline, under any circumstances - an unrepentant, amoral madman until the end. But perhaps that doesn't matter. Even if something snapped in him, and he suddenly regretted all he'd done, feared death and begged for his life...I doubt anything he could suffer would feel like justice. Like my own suffering in the Lifestream, at the hands of my own victims. Pain that serves nothing, solves nothing. I wouldn't hate him less...and it wouldn't make anything better. Perhaps you'd feel the same, as well."

Though, of course, he's only extrapolating. It's equally possible other victims might be more righteously sadistic...but, if there are victims like that, he doesn't quite think that would be Cloud. Or Nanaki, or any of Cloud's friends. At heart, all of them are good people - it's why they go through so much, sacrifice so much, for the sake of the world. Righteous rage they may feel, and deservedly so, but he thinks they would feel the same emptiness and meaninglessness in revenge that doesn't redress that he's perceived. That he feels, thinking of Hojo suffering. Hojo deserves to suffer, far more than any of the people he's harmed, but it wouldn't improve anything. Not really. Beyond, at least, stopping him from continuing to make the world worse. Good for a bitter smile, perhaps, and no more.

"I'm sorry. It seems as though the only certainties I can give you are ones you'd prefer not to have." As far as Sephiroth can tell, the divergence point of their timelines...it seems to be after Cloud's return to Midgar, after Zack's death. He doesn't fully understand it, but there can be no doubt that everything prior to that point seems to be the same for both of them. There's no doubt, after all, that this Cloud was in Hojo's care for those four years; their connection was hint enough, and now Cloud's own memories confirm the circumstances under which that connection was created were indeed the same. The Nibelheim massacre was the same. Sephiroth suspects that, if he questioned Cloud's life back as far as he cared to go, everything he knows of Cloud through Jenova, that it would all dovetail exactly. There's hardly a reason for anything else to vary, anyway; certainly all preceding events were not particularly major events in Cloud's life. Aspects of his relationship with Tifa, perhaps, but then if those had changed, wouldn't Cloud's relationship with Tifa now - would his joining AVALANCHE at all - have changed to reflect that? No; it seems there is a distinct branch, somewhere between their worlds, and Sephiroth feels he's at least able to pin down - roughly - when it happened. Primarily observation and process of elimination, but he feels there might be a touch of intuition involved as well.

But...well, as he's said, the unfortunate aspect of that is primarily that all he can do is unearth the traumas Cloud's own mind has tried to lock away. Things that happened before Midgar. Any reassurances about the future, any happy endings there might be...they won't mean anything to a Cloud who isn't guaranteed to reach them. For whom things are already very different, and may only change more. Sephiroth would like to hope that, somehow, they can change for the better - if nothing else, perhaps Aerith doesn't have to die - but hope isn't something that comes easily to him. It never has.

Cloud can slowly feel himself coming back into full control of himself, the final remnants of the visions around him fading into nothingness like they'd never existed.

"There's no ifs about whether he's going to get what he deserves in my timeline. We will stop him. And then some."

As intially appealing as the idea of Hojo suffering intensely seems, Cloud, in his heart of hearts, knows that would serve nothing, just as Sephiroth mentioned. Yes, he does feel the same. Why create even more suffering to perpetuate a cycle Hojo already pushed along so much himself? Wishing for that makes one no better than the madman. He deserves a painful end, and needs to be stopped- not prolonged suffering, even if it would be poetic. Cloud is simply not a man who enjoys or does well when faced with the suffering of other human beings. Beneath the cool facade, he has a powerful sense of justice. Clearly something Sephiroth knows well.

As for the certainties...

"Not wanting them doesn't change if I need to know them or not. You're still..." Cloud pauses, making the realization in the midst of vocalizing his thought, "....Helping." He is. Sephiroth has been helping this entire time- just as he swore to. Impossibly, against every instinct and experience instilled in Cloud from home, Sephiroth is helping him. This mess makes it tangible. Touchable as the warm hand that remained so steady throughout his harrowing experience.

Those mako eyes dart away to focus on ...anything else. The gesture is almost sheepish.

"So thanks."

Even more than the gratitude...being told that he's actually helping, and in particular that he's helping Cloud - someone he, or something wearing his face, has done so much harm to - means so much to Sephiroth that his breath actually catches when he hears the words. Guilt, regret, shame, helplessness...those feelings have been so much of his life. Long before Jenova.

He'd managed to help people, it's true, even in ShinRa. Other SOLDIERs. Civilians. Friends. This isn't the first time he's ever felt as though he's made a positive difference. But...it's certainly never been as much of his life as he would have liked. This feeling that maybe things are better because he exists.

He can never undo what's been done in his name, with his body, but...perhaps he can in fact make things better for the people he's harmed. And this is the first truly tangible proof of that. And, for the first time...his continued existence doesn't feel quite so selfish.

"I'm glad," he says, faintly. And even in those two words, his voice almost breaks.

Cloud was already starting to think of his strategic retreat, much like a wounded cat trying to slink away and hide...

...But the raw, genuine emotions that he sees and hears on Sephiroth from his expression of thanks knock the breath out of him momentarily. For a time, Cloud cannot tear his eyes from Sephiroth's- this is perhaps the first time the merc holds prolonged eye contact with him since they started interacting in this strange new world. His lips part in an expression of shock, but also almost wonder.

Cloud Strife is left to just take that in for a few silent beats. To let it sink in just how much helping him truly means to his hero. To someone he thought long dead.

...Clearly, he's compromised. Clearly, he needs to slink off and process all of this. Alone. Where the silver cannot continue to see the gentle, vague pink that dusts his warm cheeks.

"It's fine," Cloud manages, in a voice much smaller than he would have liked. It's soft, clearly the blonde's gentleness coming through. Always when he tries to stifle it with a stone-cold mask. He takes a step back, and turns away, regarding Sephiroth over his shoulder once that magnetic eye contact finally breaks.

"...See you around. Got jobs to hit."

He departs rather immediately after, mind alight with thoughts both shocked...and a little flustered.

Howling and Hollow (Cloud Catch-All)

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Cw for human experimentation, medical trauma imagery

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