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year 5, quarter 3
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Post by Cloud Strife on Jan 18, 2023 22:10:57 GMT -6
It was past time to get gone. If he didn't leave Provo behind, he'd never get his head clear. He'd take another run at Sephiroth with all the same fire and fury he carried in his heart and screw it up. He couldn't let himself get pulled around by puppet strings of Jenova cells again. He'd plan it out, do it right, and finish this thing once and for all.
The way it should've been finished, the way it was finished, before they all got pulled here.
Cloud had said his goodbyes and his thanks to Yuna and offered his help if she ever needed it, for what good that was. Odds were she wouldn't, but she'd done so much for him it didn't feel right leaving without offering something. He'd retrieved his motorcycle and now stood on the road just outside the clinic, staring at it skeptically. It was, in the loosest sense of the word, running, but he still felt like he needed to check all the seals again. Or maybe figure out what gods these people prayed to around here and hope one of them would do him a solid at least until he crossed into Sonora.
His sword was assembled into a single blade and presently he was attempting to affix a temporary sheath to the side of the gas tank to make it easier to travel with - he couldn't take a passenger with that thing on his back. There was a mess of ratchet straps around the tank and winding through the forks that he trusted even less than the bike itself. After ten minutes of contemplation from every angle, Cloud undid the whole mess and dropped the straps on the ground beside the front wheel.
"Shit..." he exhaled between his teeth. Back to the drawing board.
Staring at his distorted reflection in the chrome curve of the front forks, he didn't even notice the pair of people approaching him until they were moving smears of color in the metal before his eyes.
Post by Yuffie Kisaragi on Jan 19, 2023 11:37:38 GMT -6
"Get ready , ZEPHRON, for YUFFIE!"
The Great Ninja Yuffie!
It felt like it had been a long journey, but finally, there he was! There was no doubt that the person currently fiddling with one of those stupid two wheeled motorised bike thingies that the Shinra peeps liked was Cloud. She'd recognise that spiky hair anywhere! He seemed to be busy, trying, to figure out how to attach his dumb giant sword to the bike, which just proved to Yuffie that yes, it was a really dumb weapon and it'd have made way more sense to just have a shuriken. You know, like a normal person.
"Ha! I knew it!" she beamed, running over. "I knew you couldn't get that thing around easily!" she announced, jabbing a finger at the sword. And then she struck a pose, hands on her hips, hips cocked to the side, wearing a big smirk. She kinda wished she'd brought her moogle cloak to dramatically throw it off and reveal who it was, but, oh well. "Yep! That's right! It's me! Did ya miss me!?" she asked with a big grin.
"Now, I didn't bring enough materia for BOTH of us, 'cause, well, I didn't realise we were all gonna get sucked into an alternative dimension thingie, but I got some, and I'm TOTALLY ready to help!" she insisted, pausing to throw a few punches to show her level of preparation. "An' I got Caius here who is basically my new sidekick! So, like, the three of us should be TOTALLY ready to go deal with Sephiroth, don'tcha think?"
She paused, and then she peered at him, leaning forwards. "I HEARD you tried to fight him on your own and got all beat up," she added, critically. "I mean, that's you for you, right? Always getting into trouble," she went on, before leaning back to talk to Caius. "See? He's useless without me," she told him. "But now me and my kick-butt materia are here to help, we can't loose! Look, I got, uh, Fire 3, and Ice 3, and Bolt 3, and Cure 3, oh, and Chocomog! 'cause, I bet Sephiroth won't see a GREAT BIG CHOCOBO coming to kick him in the face!" she explained, juggling her materia orbs to show them off to Cloud. "Caius doesn't have materia 'cause he sucks but it's okay he's got a gun that's also a sword. Or maybe a sword that's also a gun. I dunno. I told him it was dumb but he insists it works."
Post by Caius Dragelion on Jan 19, 2023 11:55:27 GMT -6
The Dragonblades
Oh thank the Astrals they were here.
Now, don't get it twisted. Yuffie seemed like a fine and upstanding young lady. But Caius needed a break from her antics. A few minutes of Yuffie was one thing. But an entire day of Yuffie when you're not used to it is another thing entirely. So when Yuna's clinic came into sight and between the fumes of that weird vehicle Cloud rode around back in Sonora he managed to catch the visage of Cloud, Caius would have breathed a sigh in relief if not for, well, the fumes. Luckily Vordun had been sent to get some rest, so there was no risk of flammable gas being, well. Flamed.
Yuffie, as expected, ran forward to accost Cloud. Caius decided not to in fact run to keep up with her. He had a minute or two of peace, he was going to take it. So by the time he caught up at a slow walk, Yuffie had just announced him as her "sidekick". The mercenary waved the fumes away as he managed to sigh.
"You look like you've healed up nicely"
Their last conversation had been fairly one-sided, considering Cloud had been about three quarters dead at that point. But it had mostly involved Caius chewing him out for getting into this fight, putting Provo in danger and nearly getting himself killed in the process. He had been busy with business since, especially with Celes' working vacation, but at least Cloud looked like he had healed up properly.
Yuffie went on about materia and Sephiroth, and Caius didn't understand half of it. He cocked his head towards Yuffie as he addressed Cloud.
"She showed up at our door demanding to join the Dragonblades. I've been with her all day."
He had the impression Cloud would know exactly what Caius meant by that last part.
Post by Cloud Strife on Jan 31, 2023 23:30:09 GMT -6
The voice cut through the feeble rumbling of the motorcycle engine like an air raid siren or a fire alarm. Cloud's shoulders reflexively tensed up, suddenly on alert. The dirt ground under his boots and he turned on his heel to face the oncoming storm. Yuffie ran towards him and whatever limitless well of energy she drew from had followed her all the way to another world. Or maybe she tapped it from the world around her. Caius - it took Cloud a second to put the name and the face together again - trailed behind her in a way that supported the second theory.
"Yuffie?" Cloud started, his vaguely annoyed resting expression replaced instead with genuine if restrained surprise. Running into somebody from their world wasn't a new experience anymore, but it hadn't gotten mundane yet. Eventually they'd find everyone. He was as sure of that as he could force himself to be. "When did you--"
But that was about all he could get out before she talked straight over him. The surprise in his expression dimmed until it was gone. Like a subconscious reflex, his eyes dipped to the materia slotted in the mystile around his wrist, in the base of his swords. She was still talking. Cloud reached over, turned the key in the ignition and killed the motorcycle's engine but he didn't think Yuffie would have noticed either way. She had a lot of talking to do. If Shinra had figured out how to harness her yapping for power generation, they wouldn't have ever needed mako.
If he didn't try to interject he'd never get a word in.
"Slow down," Cloud said, holding his palms up to emphasize the point. "Yes, I fought Sephiroth. The situation with him is... complicated," Cloud paused a beat, frowning. Sephiroth has friends still seemed like such an absurdity that Cloud couldn't totally accept it, even after he'd spoken with Angeal. "...So we're not going after him right away. Not until we figure out a plan."
He looked past Yuffie, to Caius, and nodded a little awkwardly. He cleared his throat and scratched at the back of his head.
"Didn't get a chance to say thanks for scraping me off the pavement," he muttered. The guilt around the collateral damage still stuck to his ribs. "So... Thanks. Yuna does good work."
He looked between Caius and Yuffie for a moment, and one part of him latched on to the idea of Yuffie with the Dragonblades, and the other part of him thought Caius hadn't done anything to earn that kind of punishment. He didn't comment on it, but he offered Caius what might have passed as a subtle look of sympathy.
Employment options aside, he asked Yuffie: "Have you found anyone else? Tifa and Aerith are here, but I haven't seen Barret or Nanaki or the others since I got to this world."
Post by Yuffie Kisaragi on Feb 1, 2023 2:25:28 GMT -6
"Get ready , ZEPHRON, for YUFFIE!"
The Great Ninja Yuffie!
Caius was pretty blunt about how he knew Yuffie, but Yuffie was too hyper at seeing Cloud to care. She did just however fix a grin when he said about her insisting she join the Dragonblades. "They're heroes, Cloud! They go around fighting bad guys and helping people. Aren't ya proud of me?" she said with a beaming smile. She knew what Cloud thought of her after the little... incident in Wutai. So she was eager to prove to him that she was still a hero. Not that she hadn't ALWAYS been a hero. She had just, uh, maybe gone about it slightly the wrong way. Yeah, that was it.
The mildly annoyed expression on Cloud's face when he first saw Yuffie went completely over her head. People always made that face around her, and at this point, Yuffie just assumed it was what most people's faces looked like. But she did notice the look of surprise. For a moment, she thought maybe he didn't know about Tifa either, but she was pretty sure Caius had said they'd met. He was obviously just surprised to see a badass like her. He probably figured whatever weird thing that brought them here would never have been able to catch her because she was so awesome. Or something. Yeah, that must have been it. She wasn't trying to convince herself of that at all. It was totally true.
Cloud tried to slow her down, which meant she did eventually stop to listen. The situation with Sephiroth was... complicated? They weren't going after him right away? She paused, a little confused, enough to fall silent for at least a moment. Okay, Sephiroth had been acting weird when she saw him too, but, he was Sephiroth. He didn't exactly act normal most of the time. "Isn't he like the son of a weird alien goop monster that sometimes is the goop monster itself and went insane and sometimes grows loads of wings for no reason?" Yuffie asked. "I mean... isn't he always complicated?" But Cloud wanted a plan. She supposed that was Cloud for you. Actually wanting to think things through.
But then Yuffie did something that, well, might have come as a shock to Caius. Because she... deferred to Cloud, accepting his role as leader. "Okay! But when you're ready, I'm ready! I've still got my materia, and I am super ready to kick his butt!" she exclaimed, throwing a few rapid punches to show off that her ninja skills were still top notch. She wanted to know that she had Cloud's back, even if the fight was not quite what they had expected.
However, Yuffie's expression completely changed when he asked about the others. Yes, she had known Tifa was there, but had he just said Aerith? The expression that flickered across Yuffie's face was difficult to describe, because Yuffie herself wasn't quite sure what she felt hearing that. Aerith? For a moment there was hurt, there was sadness, there was even what could be called love, a flicker of almost tears in her eyes, and she looked over at Caius, and back to Cloud, utterly shocked. For a moment, the cockiness was gone, and there stood the lonely little girl who was always trying to make people like her. The girl hiding all of her insecurities behind an unchecked ego and brash confidence. A girl who had failed the only person who had ever really cared for her without any jokes or sass or annoyance, and who had watched her die. And now she was... back?
It was, of course, plausible. After all, they'd killed Sephiroth too, and he was back. But she hadn't... ever expected... Ever... thought...
"She's... alive?" Yuffie said quietly. And then her face broke into a smile. But this wasn't Yuffie's usual grin of mischief and silliness. This was a genuine smile of a teenage girl, suddenly delighted. "Aerith's alive!? Caius, Aerith is alive!" she exclaimed, spinning and tugging on Caius's sleeve with excitement. "H-how is she? Where is she!? Ohhh, did she ask about me? I gotta see her!" Yuffie exclaimed, her energy suddenly bursting back to the front. And then, once again for Yuffie, her expression fell more sombre, and more serious. "There are... things I gotta say to her. Things I never got to say..." she explained, her tone slightly sorrowful again.
Post by Caius Dragelion on Feb 10, 2023 9:49:15 GMT -6
The Dragonblades
Cloud was generous enough to kill the engine, which also killed the smell. Caius had grown to greatly dislike the smell of vehicular emission, so he was grateful for this. He really wasn't going to like the trip to Sonora, he knew. On that note, Cloud tried to get a word in with Yuffie. Good luck with that, Caius thought. But eventually he was able to get out just enough. They would not be attacking Sephiroth without a battle plan. Fair enough. Surprisingly Yuffie was good with this plan, however. Considering how unagreeable she had been this entire trip, that was a shock for Caius. It seemed Cloud indeed might be the leader of their little unit.
Why was it that every world he'd come into contact with had little units of their own? Many of whom had fought to save their world. And everyone that he met who was also in that world was connected to that unit somehow. Caius was too, if one counted Noctis and his fellows as a unit, but... At the same time, he was very, very distant.
Eventually Cloud got to thanking Caius for "scraping him off the pavement" as he called it. Caius nodded at that. "It's what we do. If you know any white mages or anyone with healing magic, however. I would ask them about giving Yuna a hand. She could use it. While no civilians were killed in the crossfire, Yuna had her hands full with tending to the injured."
Fortunately for Cloud, Caius had gotten the bulk of the chastising out of his system while Cloud was out cold. While the venom was gone however, he did feel it right to point out the consequences of his actions and that maybe he should help Yuna out to make up for her trouble.
But one name caught his attention, and Yuffie's as well. Aerith. Caius recognized the name from Yuffie's sudden burst of panicked rambling after he had brought up Cloud's fight with Sephiroth. The absolute fear, horror and panic that ensued just from saying the man's name had stuck with Caius, and he remembered her saying that Sephiroth had killed an Aerith who had clearly meant a lot to Yuffie.
So. This world had brought her here too. How many departed souls had this world dragged back into the living? Were they as confused as he had been?
Yuffie's expression told Caius enough about her feelings. It was made even more evident by the celebration that followed, the pure and utter joy that was clear to see. So he made the decision then and there, even before Yuffie had begun asking questions about Aerith. In a rare show of any form of affection, Caius hesitantly brought a hand down on Yuffie's head just as she settled into a solemn quiet.
"We can delay your trial for later. I can handle the bandits for today, if I take Vordun with me I'll be fine. I think it's best you stay here with Cloud and get all the information you need about your friend. Just come back to Torensten when you're ready."
Caius did not want to put pressure on Yuffie after this revelation. She deserved to have time to revel in this joy. With that, he looked to Cloud.
"Speaking of information. Cloud, I need to know what happened here. With you and Sephiroth. This fight, putting innocents in harm's way like that. I need to know what's going on. Yuffie told me he was some kind of monster that tried to destroy your planet, but that's about all that I have."
Post by Cloud Strife on Apr 22, 2023 18:33:22 GMT -6
Figuring out how to deal with Yuffie again was like trying to wake up a sleeping limb. She barrelled through every conversation at a hundred miles an hour, and it had been long enough since they'd last spoken to each other that Cloud couldn't remember how he ever managed to filter out all the stuff he could ignore. Maybe he'd just been ignoring most of it. Maybe that was the trick.
But when Aerith came up, Yuffie's entire demeanor changed, and even Cloud wasn't enough of an asshole to brush right past that. His expression shifted, somewhere in the middle on a gradient from awkward to sympathetic. He rubbed the back of his head.
"Yeah, she's here, she's good," Cloud said. Bringing up Aerith out of the blue like that was a dumb move, but he hadn't even been thinking... "Listen, hey, we'll go find her soon and you can hear everything from her." It was about all he could think to say to shelve the topic for some future discussion where Yuffie's shouting hadn't brought the eyes of the neighborhood peering out from their windows.
Of course, he'd much rather have continued on that track than deal with Caius' line of questioning. Not about his recklessness or the collateral damage - he had that coming. But it ended up being Tell me about Sephiroth, again. It felt like that was all he was ever talking about these days. If he'd have killed Sephiroth in the town square it would've been worth it just so he never had to think back to Nibelheim again. Never had to recount the flames. Never had to remember the depths of the northern crater. None of that would matter anymore if Sephiroth would just stay dead, if his stupid corpse would stay buried in the stupid ground and just rot already.
His posture stiffened, and he shot a quick glance from Yuffie back to Caius.
"Well, she's not wrong," Cloud started, neither sounding nor looking enthusiastic.
Maybe the more he recounted Nibelheim the more he'd get numb to it. No, that wouldn't happen, and he wasn't sure he wanted it to either.
"Sephiroth used to work for this company called Shinra, as a SOLDIER. They had their own army and... basically ruled the world. Their scientists created him using cells from this alien called Jenova, so he was stronger and faster and more powerful than any human could be. But they never told him how he was made."
Cloud felt a kind of itch in his blood. Absently, he scratched at the inside of his forearm.
"He got sent on a mission to my hometown. I was there too, just a grunt, along with another SOLDIER named Zack. Turned out there was a whole library with research notes from the scientists who discovered Jenova and created him. And what was left of Jenova was stored in the reactor. So he found out how he was made, went insane, and burned the town down."
He paused, just for a beat, checking Caius's reaction. The cynic in him was bracing for another stupid defense of Sephiroth, because that seemed to be his luck. But Cloud pressed on in the story, the bitterness evident in his voice.
"He killed everyone. Killed my mom. Killed Tifa's dad, almost killed her... Me an' Zack went after him at the reactor. In the end, he fell into the lifestream and after that everyone thought he was dead. But he wasn't. He came back five years later, more powerful than he was before, with a new plan. He was gonna use somethin' called the Black Materia to summon Meteor, what the Ancients called 'Ultimate Destructive Magic'. Meteor would crash into the planet and create a wound so deep that all the planet's energy would travel there to try to heal it. And he'd be waiting there at the center of it to absorb it all and make himself a god."
Cloud paced a few steps, crossed his arms over his chest. The fight part of his fight or flight instinct started kicking in just telling the story. He felt the electricity running from his chest down his arms and into his fingertips. He clenched his jaw and scanned the street just for something to do while he tamped everything back down in his head.
Post by Yuffie Kisaragi on Apr 30, 2023 9:53:32 GMT -6
"Get ready , ZEPHRON, for YUFFIE!"
The Great Ninja Yuffie!
Usually, Yuffie would have complained when Caius's hand came down on her head. She hated people treating her like a kid, even if she knew she was pretty young compared to the others. But in this instance, she was just too excited by the recent news of Aerith being alive to worry about it. Caius seemed to agree that Yuffie's trial could be delayed, which, well, that was fine. While Yuffie was eager to prove herself to the Dragonblades, she was even more eager to see Aerith again. "Sure, sure. Plus, like, Cloud will back up everything I told you about me helping save the world. So, it's not like I even need a trial!" she pointed out with her usual enthusiasm, although she was mostly distracted by the fact that Aerith was alive.
"Hey! I gave you all the deets, whatcha talkin' about?" Yuffie asked when Caius asked Cloud for more information on Sephiroth. Like Yuffie hadn't already explained it perfectly! His Mom was a goop monster from outer space and he wanted to destroy the world! What else did Caius need?
The answer came as Cloud went into more details, but Yuffie didn't really think it helped add anything. She'd covered the key points! Cloud explained more, but Yuffie piped in; "AND he killed Aerith!" angrily when Cloud left that bit out. Sure, okay, so maybe she wasn't STILL dead, but the moment had wounded Yuffie enough that she felt she had to point it out. She paused. "I mean, I know, Cloud said she's back, but he killed her. Then we killed him. And I guess he's alive again too. So... um... this place is weird?" she said as she tried to process all of that information.
"The point is he's evil! Even before he did all that stuff in Nibelheim he was fighting for Shinra! He helped crush Wutai and my people. He's always been a bad guy. He just got even worse! You can't trust anyone who used to fight for Shinra!" she declared. And then she paused, and looked at Cloud. "Uh, except Cloud. You can trust him," she added quickly.
"Anyway! We're wastin' time! C'mon, Cloud! We gotta go see Aerith!" Yuffie said, her excitement returning, and everything else fading away at the thought of going to see the flower girl that she'd thought dead for so long.
Post by Caius Dragelion on May 9, 2023 10:10:25 GMT -6
The Dragonblade
Yuffie claimed that she didn’t need a trial and that Cloud would back her up. Caius shook his head at that. “Something I’m sure Cloud will agree with is that sometimes, the best perspective to get is your own, firsthand. I have seen Cloud in action, but as I told you, it’s not just your combat proficiency I’m looking at” Caius pointed out to Yuffie. “We can do that another time, however. Your friend is more important.”
It was true that Yuffie had given Caius some of the gist, including that Sephiroth had killed Aerith. Something that Yuffie chose to repeat during Cloud’s explanation as well. But it didn’t hurt to get a perspective from someone that wasn’t Yuffie. Cloud meanwhile, looked like he had told this story a hundred times already and was dreading telling another. He would have his sympathy if not for the fact that Cloud’s own actions had deemed this a necessity. It’s not like Caius had planned to ask Cloud for his life story of trauma from the moment he’d met him. Normally people liked to keep those cards close to the chest unless speaking to a close confidante, and he highly doubted that Cloud viewed him as anything but an acquaintance at best. So unfortunately for Cloud, necessity was what it was. If you don’t want to have to tell everyone the Sephiroth story, maybe don’t level a city block in pursuit of him next time.
He recognized some parts of the story from Yuffie’s explanation and his dealings with the Turks. Namely Shinra, that name seemed to come up a lot. They reminded him of how Sonora’s government ran things, making him wonder why in the world Cloud would be anywhere near that place when they first met. In his shoes? He would have been as far away from Sonora as possible if he didn’t have business commitments keeping him there. But things only got worse – Yuffie was not entirely exaggerating about Sephiroth being the crazed offspring of a giant goop monster, apparently. Caius decided not to speak throughout, letting Cloud get it out. At the least, attacking Sephiroth in general now made sense, the more horrors that he heard about. However, there was still such a thing as scouting and striking at the right moment…
“I think we can all mutually agree that maybe Sephiroth shouldn’t find out he was sired by ‘a goop monster from outer space’” Caius brought up at the end of it all. “His apparent lacking memories makes this complicated. I’ll investigate best I can. I recognized the man that was with him – Angeal. I’ll track him down and press him for information, if at all possible. Ideally, we can work with Angeal to eliminate the threat of Sephiroth without further damage. Or at least gain intel on what he's planning and stop it, if the worst comes to it.”
It seemed that Yuffie would be leaving with Cloud, so Caius supposed he could hit up the local tavern and look for information regarding these bandits he needed to deal with, and possibly leads on Angeal as well.
“It seems she’s in a hurry to go, so I won’t keep you” Caius spoke up then as he peered up at the sky to keep an eye on Vordun, before looking back to them. “Send Yuffie back to Torensten when she’s ready. And try to find time to lend some kind of aid to Yuna if you can. She’s taken on a lot, and hardly charges even when she needs to. It wouldn't surprise me if she's struggling.”
She absolutely was, as Celes' letter would soon reveal.
Post by Cloud Strife on Jul 25, 2023 22:02:12 GMT -6
His apparent lacking memories makes this complicated. The words stuck like splinters in his mind, and all he heard was Caius making the same argument Tifa made - the one he couldn't bring himself to understand - even if Caius wasn't saying the same thing in so many words.
It always came back to those god damn missing memories. Sure, get hit with mystical amnesia and all your sins are forgiven. All the people you killed, all the lives you destroyed, absolved because you forgot. Cloud gritted his teeth but he didn't say anything. Eliminate the threat of Sephiroth was vague enough that Cloud could hope Caius meant eliminate Sephiroth but he didn't have the energy in him in that moment to debate it if that wasn't true.
The fact that Yuffie was the only person who backed him on this without blinking might have given him pause in any other situation, but he took what support he could get. For all her immaturity, she understood what Sephiroth was. What he did. He took, he killed, he destroyed. It was all he ever did, all he was made for, long before he found his alien 'mother' floating in a tank in a backwater mako reactor. Nibelheim didn't make Sephiroth, it just took the mask off.
But that wasn't this conversation, and Cloud let the simmering anger die before it could come to a boil. The whole point was to get his ass out of Provo and leave the Sephiroth issue on ice at least for a little while, before he did something reckless again. The collateral damage still ate at him. He imagined Sephiroth never gave it a second thought - they were all worthless creatures to him, weren't they? But Cloud wasn't about to stomach another person hurt because of him, or a healer run ragged because of him, or a friend dead because of him.
"It's only complicated because he's hanging around in cities now instead of a crater at the ass-end of the world," Cloud muttered, "Yuffie's right about him. But I don't want anyone else getting caught in the crossfire. So we'll play it safe."
He stopped pacing like a caged dog and relaxed his shoulders and looked between Yuffie and Caius. In his observation of their back-and-forth he got the impression that maybe Caius didn't fully understand what he was signing up for by recruiting Yuffie into his Dragonblades thing. Or by letting her recruit herself. Whatever. Maybe Caius' pawning her off on Cloud again was a chance to get off the hook, but he seemed sincere about wanting her to head back to Torensten when all was said and done.
Good luck, man, Cloud thought.
"Okay, Yuffie, let's go," he said in a voice that did not betray any level of overt enthusiasm. He picked up the fallen tangle of ratchet straps and stuffed them into one of the saddlebags on his motorcycle.
"I'll see what I can do to help Yuna out," Cloud told Caius. He didn't exactly know an abundance of healers unless you'd call anyone lugging around a Restore materia a healer. But he'd figure something out. "I owe her one."
More than one, really, but it was better to start small.
