He'd been here before.

It was distant, like a dream or a hazy half-forgotten memory, but the tension, the pressure, the feeling of cold dread that twisted in his gut and paradoxically set his heart racing with the hot rush of adrenaline was a feeling too intense to forget.

His fingers were tingling, his mouth was dry, eyes burning…

Cloud grasped his head and hissed as a sudden sharp pain lanced through his skull. The degradation. It was like a red hot poker to the brain, like the most intense migraine you've ever experienced, enough to make you lose your footing, if only for a brief moment, before it faded back into nothing just as quickly as it had come.

He shook his head.

No time for that now. Gotta keep moving. He didn't know what was about to happen, but he knew this was a turning point. Once again, he stood at the crossroads of destiny, and reality held its breath just before the plunge.

It was just like back on the expressway.

No. Even greater than that time.

The air was absolutely choked with Whispers, their fluttering black and white silhouettes twining and twisting around one another, moving together in great currents like schools of fish as they drifted through the air.

Cloud boarded the elevator and it began to descend, independent of any input on his part.

As the stone platform sunk ever lower into the City of the Ancients, it began to feel a little like drowning. The strange subaqueous architecture, with its undulating wave like patterns and jutting protrusions of what could only be described as terrestrial coral, the way the dim blue light overhead seemed to intensify the further down he went, the way the breath began to catch in his throat, like there wasn't enough air to fully fill his lungs.

He let out a long sigh, eyes closing for a brief moment as he held his sword aloft in a practiced salute. Before his memories of Zack returned, he didn't know why he performed the gesture. Just that it felt right. But now, there was more to it than that. A way to preserve his legacy maybe. A small token of respect for the fallen. Perhaps even a prayer for Zack to look out for him, wherever he may be now.

Zack was the one who taught him the salute, the creed. Taught him that when his thoughts became turbulent and uncertain before a mission he could calm them by emptying himself and embracing whatever may come. So long as he maintained his honor as a SOLDIER, well, ex-SOLDIER, the end result was secondary. As long as he could do that, he'd already won.

But damned if it was hard to separate himself from the result when there was so much on the line. When the whole world seemed to hold its breath in anticipation of what was about to happen.

A wave of emotions washed over him as he thought of his old friend. Guilt at forgetting about him for so long, gratitude for all Zack had taught him, and… jealousy maybe? Not quite, but it was something that looked similar if you squinted at it hard enough.

When he thought of Zack, his thoughts couldn't help but naturally drift to Aerith and the relationship that the two of them used to have.

He let out a sound that was half hiss and half scoff. Now wasn't the time for this and he was frustrated and disappointed in himself that this, of all places, was where his mind was wandering. When this was all over he could figure out what she meant to him.

Her and Tifa both. After so much back and forth, he owed them that much at least.

Before his mind could wander any further to that night at the Gold Saucer, he reined in his thoughts and reaffirmed his focus.

Aerith…

He had to save her. She was in danger.

His mind flashed to… whatever the hell happened after the Temple of the Ancients. A different world, a glowing chasm that split the sky, a date that felt wrong and melancholy, a heartfelt moment at their place, a warm embrace, a priceless gift, and a bitter parting as a tall figure dressed in black walked through the doors as she pushed him away.

Sephiroth. The true nature of reality. Seven seconds 'till the end.

"Focus, Cloud."

He pressed the cold steel of the republic-era greatsword to his forehead, taking a small amount of comfort in the way that the sensation grounded him and stilled his racing thoughts. It wasn't the Buster, but it was the blade that he'd started their journey with. It was fitting that this was the blade he'd finish it with.

The elevator bottomed out. He could see the Whispers congregating where she was praying.

He could hear her, voice soft and distant, but resolute.

"O planet and its faithful stewards. Please… lend me your strength. I know I'm doing this wrong. Mom never taught me how to pray. And as the last living Cetra, I may never learn."

The steps extended onward seemingly into eternity. The wind howled, born by the Whispers that buffeted against him, doing all they could to slow his progress toward her. It only steeled his resolve.

"All I want… is one thing. To keep the others safe. They mean so much to me."

It can't be happening. Not again. This time. This time it'll be different.

"So please. Tell me how to do that. I'm begging you."

The thought was almost enough to give him pause. Not again? Different from what?

He quieted his mind. He should have been relieved. He'd made it in time.

There she was before him, her eyes closed in peaceful reverie as she prayed to the planet. He was here now. He could protect her. So why then was his heart pounding so loud that it was all he could hear over the howl of the Whispers.

His left hand moved, tightening around the greatsword, taking the weapon in both hands. He would be ready. Ready for whatever might come.

The blade raised a few inches.

In that moment, a shock of cold dread flooded his veins as he realized what was happening. His heartbeat quickened as the slightest bit of panic set in. He forced the weapon down. The Whispers around him became a hurricane. The blade once again began to drift upward. He tried to let go. His fingers wouldn't respond. It was as though his hands had fused with the leather of the sword's grip. The blade drifted higher. It was now at shoulder level. A flash of violet as one of the materia socketed within the saber came to life. Strength surged through his arms. He forced the blade down. Impossibly, the gale intensified, but at the same moment the runes on the otherworldly gauntlets he wore flared to life.

His hands didn't budge an inch. He was strong.

Perhaps even strong enough to defy destiny.

Black feathers drifted into his field of view. Green eyes fluttered open, staring up at him. He met her gaze for the briefest of moments before his eyes flickered upward. His entire world narrowed to the flash of steel as Masamune plunged downward towards Aerith's heart.

"No!" His voice was a desperate roar as he wrenched the greatsword free from the Whisper's grasp, its hilt flaring amber as one of the materia activated. He didn't care if his body tore itself apart. Right now, he needed every drop of strength he could muster.

Again he locked eyes, this time mako-dyed aquamarine met with their slitted and predatory counterpart.

Sephiroth's face was a mask. The ever-present sinister smirk never left his features even as their blades collided in a thundering crash of ringing steel.

Cloud grit his teeth, his muscles burned, his focus was singular. Never had he struck with so much force in all his life. At the point of collision, there was a flash of prismatic light.

Sephiroth's brow raised in a mixture of surprise and amusement. The puppet was strong. Far stronger than he'd expected.

But still not strong enough.

Cloud's guard began to buckle ever so slightly.

Oh how he would savor his despair as the puppet failed to protect the Cetra once again.

A flurry of motion. Green on green as Sephiroth found himself staring into her eyes. The smirk fell from his lips. The barest hint of rage bubbled up within him as he tried to force his blade forward.

But the puppet held. His blade shook, but his guard didn't break.

"That's against the rules." Sephiroth chastised. "Very poor form indeed."

Aerith giggled as she wrapped her arms around Cloud, her tone almost singsong. "Not sorry."

The light where their swords crossed became almost blinding. Too bright to look at, even for him. And as his vision returned, the spot where the two of them had stood was now empty.

Sephiroth let his blade fall lazily to his side, the howl of the Whispers dissipating as the white robed figures disentangled themselves from the black and returned to the planet. The smirk was back in spite of himself, but there was just the barest hint of bitterness to it. It wasn't often that he made mistakes, but this time he had well and truly been outplayed.

"I must admit." He said to no one in particular even as the puppet's comrades hurried up the steps to where he was waiting. "I underestimated you."

And in a flurry of black feathers, he too was gone.

Zack winced at the sudden flash of light.

Only after that did he dimly become aware of himself. His body was suspended, floating in something. Not quite water. The consistency wasn't right. His eyes were open, but he wasn't quite able to get them to focus. Nor could he get his thoughts to entirely form. Everything around him was green, as though he were at the center of a liquid emerald. He tried to move and couldn't, not quite. It was as if he was in some liminal space between waking and dreaming. Sleep paralysis. He tried again. He was so tired. It was almost impossible to move, but he could feel that he was indeed moving, albeit slowly. His arm reached forward, not quite fully under his control just yet. Frustration mounted within him as he was forced to rest. Just trying to move was taking every ounce of energy he had. He was slipping back into unconsciousness again, the call of oblivion whispering sweetly in his ear with every second that he waited. He willed his arm to move again, focusing every thought, everything that he was, into just moving his damn arm.

Close, so close. If he could just…

His arm suddenly shot forward and met with the solid glass wall of the containment tank. His heart was thundering in his chest as a wave of relief washed over him

He immediately became aware that he was submerged in mako as he drew in deep lungfuls of the fluid in an attempt to still his racing heart. It was a strange sensation. The liquid was perfectly breathable, but far heavier than air in a way that tricked your body into thinking that you were drowning. You wouldn't, but you definitely wouldn't have a good time. Fully immersed, you'd only have a few moments before toxicity of the mako caused you to slip into a coma.

While his SOLDIER augmentations rendered him all but immune to mako poisoning, Zack didn't want to press his luck anymore than he absolutely had to. It was already a miracle that he was alive after standing toe to toe with Sephiroth of all people. If Cloud hadn't shown up when he had, both he and Tifa would've been…

Oh shit, Cloud.

His pulse once again quickened at the sudden remembrance of his friend, and the anxiety and anger coiling in his chest intermingled with the heavy sensation of the mako in his lungs making it hard to breathe properly. There was no way that Cloud had survived their encounter with Sephiroth, right? The last time Zack had seen him, he'd been impaled. And not just impaled. Cloud had pulled the sword deeper into his own body to get enough leverage to throw Sephiroth into the Lifestream at the base of the reactor. God there was so much blood…

He forced the thoughts away for the time being. Although he wouldn't succumb to mako poisoning, there was no telling when his body would give out again.

His eyes scanned the room. He was in a laboratory of some kind. Dark. Cramped. Somewhere underground. A basement maybe? No, definitely. This place was familiar. He'd been here before.

Shinra Manor.

The tube he was in was made of glass. Even without a weapon he was more than strong enough to break through it. But could he do it without cutting his hands to ribbons in the process?

His attention was drawn by a rush of motion to his right.

Another glass tube filled with mako. Someone inside. His eyes widened as the silhouette of wild blonde hair clarified.

Cloud was alive! More than that even, Cloud was awake, and from the way he was moving he seemed to be in the same condition that Zack was.

That gave Zack a moment of pause. Something like that should have been impossible. Cloud was a normal person. Well, not exactly normal. No normal person could take a sword to the chest and then throw a man to the bottom of a reactor, but Cloud, as far as Zack knew, was an unaugmented human. God only knew how long that they'd been submerged, but Zack was willing to hazard a guess that it had at least been a few days. A normal person exposed to that much mako would be in a vegetative state for the rest of their life.

Zack watched as Cloud sluggishly reached out his arm and placed a hand on the glass just as he had moments prior. It was only then that Zack took notice of his clothes. SOLDIER fatigues? And… was that a greatsword holstered on his back?

Wait. What?

Why would they give him a sword before putting him in the specimen tank? That doesn't make any…

His thoughts were scattered violently as a massive blast of air struck the side of Cloud's tank. In an airtight vessel with nowhere else for the wind magic to go, the pressure immediately reached a critical level, causing the container to explode in a rather spectacular shower of crushed glass and verdant green mako.

Zack winced. It was loud. He could feel the pressure wave still resonating through the tank that he was suspended in.

Cloud was faring little better. Truth be told, he'd panicked and had lashed out instinctively the second he'd realized something was wrong.

What the hell was going on!? Where was Sephiroth? Maybe even more importantly, Where was Aerith? Was she safe? Their blades had met, his and Sepiroth's. He'd hit that sword so fucking hard that the impact had rattled him down to his bones. Even now his hands and arms ached from the force of the blow. Then there was a burst of light. Magic? Had his socketed elemental materia reacted to something Sephiroth was using? And for the briefest moment, it felt like Aerith had wrapped her arms around him, said something, though he couldn't make it out over the sound of the blood rushing in his ears. Then there was a sensation of intense vertigo, like he'd been falling, tumbling end over end forever, and now he was just somewhere else entirely? Had he been hit by a spell? Had Sephiroth taken control of his body again?

Too much stimulus. Too many questions. All he knew was that he needed to be free to meet the threat at hand, and he needed to be free right now. And so he acted, not giving much thought to the consequences of setting off a Sonic Boom in an enclosed space where the shockwave had nowhere to expand but through the glass, or through his body. As it turned out, it did a bit of both.

At least he was free. Relatively speaking, anyway. In practicality, he had exchanged one form of immobility for another as he now lay on the cold hard ground amidst the shattered glass, and the mako soaked grime, and the blood he'd drawn from the pipebomb he'd more or less detonated on top of himself. A few seconds passed as he hacked violently, expelling the mako from his lungs and breathing in real, albeit stale, air for the first time in what felt like a long time.

That should have set off warning bells in his head, but he was otherwise too preoccupied with scanning the room for any immediate threats.

"Shit…" He muttered weakly as he forced himself up to a standing base using his sword as a makeshift crutch. The Chakra materia slotted into his saber was already glowing with a warm golden light, and even now, the pain was slowly receding as his wounds knit themselves closed.

That was pretty stupid. At least no one was around to see…

He turned, taking in the sight of the second tank, and he froze as he found himself face to face with a man he thought long dead. A strange feeling prickled at the back of his mind, like something scratching at his psyche, some mental itch, like he was forgetting something important, that he couldn't quite place.

For a moment the two men just stared at each other, both of them not really able to believe what they were seeing.

Zack was the first to break the silence. Muted by glass and mako, Cloud could only just make out his words.

"Heya Cloud." He couldn't help the small half-incredulous half-confused smirk that spread across his features. "Little help?"

Cloud stumbled back, just barely keeping his footing as the shock of their reunion was almost enough to literally floor him. Eyes wide, jaw slack in disbelief, he couldn't help but voice the thought that was at the forefront of both of their minds.

"What the hell is going on?"