【SC】Endless Journey

(3) C-side

Some 60 years after the meteor fell and the planet repaired itself with the flow of life, Cloud sent off his last human friend with a natural lifespan.

He held Tifa's hand, and this age-old but still dignified woman closed her eyes with a smile, turned into a beautiful green light, and re-integrated into the flow of life.

Claude turned around, wiped away the tears from Marlene's eyes with his thumb, and handed her a small silver key.

"This is all I can give you and Denzel," he whispered, "and I hope you make good use of it."

Denzel has seen that key, which is the entire inheritance that Claude left in the fifth district church. At the current market price, he can buy half of Edge City.

Ma Lin held him back and asked in a trembling voice, "Are you leaving too? Will you come back?"

She knew the answer to the question, but she couldn't help asking.

The atmosphere in the room is very sentimental, but the picture still shows a strong sense of disobedience.

The blond young man who looked to be in his late twenties had more vicissitudes in his eyes than the two old men beside the bed.He said slowly in a tone like confessing his last words: "I'm already... tired."

So he won't be coming back.Denzel understood his voice and nodded sadly.

In Claude's long and lonely life, there were a few people who gave him warmth, and he stayed in this world for a while, but it wasn't him or Marlene.

Claude loves them, and they love Claude.This kind of love is more like the pampering of parents to their children, and it is Claude's dedication to them.They haven't experienced Cloud's battles and injuries, so they can't support each other's heavy spiritual world like Barrett and Tifa; if they selfishly let Cloud stay, that person will just keep repeating what happened today. This pain of parting is not what they want.

Besides, having been the guardian of the planet for decades, Claude really deserves a long vacation.

So Denzel put his arm around Marlene's shoulder lightly and shook his head.Marlene finally let go, allowing Claude to get up from the bed.

"We will always remember you, Cloud," Denzel said. "Even if you are far away, you will receive our thoughts from the stream of life...and the thoughts of all those who love you."

Tifa, Barrett, Yuffie, Sid, Leaf.

There was a curve on the lips of the young man, and the smile was almost nostalgic.He hugged the two of them the way Marlene and Denzel had done when they were children, and gave them a profile.

"Thank you."

As Denzel guessed, Cloud wanted a long rest.

He didn't know where the limit of his lifespan was. Since Xenovia was still alive and well after more than 2000 years of ice, he might not be much shorter than her.If he really wants to live that long, maybe the soul can no longer carry all the emotions and information before the body collapses, and he may have serious mental problems again, and he has already seen the consequences of this situation, which is very harmful to the planet. would be disastrous.

Vincent is an example of a problem handled very well.The other party had been sleeping in a coffin for decades, during which Chaos did not come out to cause trouble, and he was still able to maintain his sanity after waking up.If Cloud did this, it would theoretically be safer than being awake all the time.

Considering that someone once forcibly controlled him and caused him to do something irreversible, Claude prepared very cautiously this time.He wanted to make sure that no one could touch him during his deep sleep—it would be better if he was frozen in the magic crystal like Sephiroth back then—so he thought of the Great Northern Hole.First of all, that place was deserted, which minimized the risk of being discovered; second, as long as he didn't reveal his itinerary to anyone, no one would think that he would sleep in such a place.

He can go to the Ice and Snow Village by land, and then let Bahamut throw himself into the big hole at night, perfectly avoiding all witnesses.Claude was very satisfied with this plan, so the next day he locked Fenrir by the flower field of the church, took the Six Styles and the Bahamut magic stone, and headed towards the big hollow before dawn.

The process of crystallization was shorter and more painful than Claude imagined, especially because of his serious intolerance to Mako, he fell into a coma quickly, and soon spent 140 years of peace.

Most of the time his consciousness is completely silent, and occasionally he enters the stream of life in a state of suspended animation.There he chatted with Alice and old friends, and the rest of the time he was completely alone.

The deep sleep this time was not for escape or any other reason, so Claude didn't have any psychological burden, and he didn't have to respond to anyone's request.If he had to describe it, it was like a long paid vacation, allowing him to finally have his own time after being a fighter all his life.

Sephiroth was also in the Lifestream, and their thoughts still intertwine from time to time.Claude could feel that the other party was planning a grand plan, but due to the lack of means to realize it, it basically stayed at the level of conception.He had no way to punish Sephiroth in the Flow of Life, and the other party had no intention of killing him. Except that the other party had to draw their swords to face each other when they tried to attack Alice, most of the time they lived in peace.

The accident happened in the 140th year, and one day he suddenly found that Sephiroth had disappeared from the stream of life.

At first Claude thought it was his illusion, but later Alice confirmed it.In the past 200 years, Cloud has never known that Sephiroth has a means of resurrection other than his memory, which makes him have an ominous premonition.

His sleep became unstable, and he could faintly hear faint voices.It was a noise similar to a heartbeat, throbbing small and tremblingly, like a cluster of candle-sized flames that might go out at any moment.

As far as Claude knows, there are only three people who can communicate with him through the spiritual world. Zacks has entered the cycle of the stream of life to enjoy his new life, and Alice is still in the stream of life. The one that can only be...

"Sephiroth?"

He tried to call each other.

That little heartbeat seemed a little stronger.

Claude was very surprised.He had never seen such a weak Sephiroth, so weak that if he couldn't protect this cluster of flames, the other party would disappear into the universe forever.

Maybe this is a good thing for the planet, but Claude is not sure.That is Sephiroth, the incarnation of disasters from outside the sky, with the power to destroy planets—if anyone can resurrect the other party from the stream of life and put him in such a dangerous situation, it will only be a more dangerous existence than the other party, So he couldn't let Sephiroth just disappear before he figured it all out.

So after a while, Claude began to call Sephiroth consciously.Although the connection between them has weakened a lot, the one-way communication still works.He worked so hard to call for a year, and Sephiroth's noise gradually became calmer from the beginning of Candle in the Wind, and his hanging heart was slightly relieved.

Claude felt the need to see what happened to the outside world, so he decided to end his slumber.But the recovery of the body that has been sleeping for more than 140 years takes time, just like the amphibians hibernating in the ice and snow must slowly thaw, he can only keep calling Sephiroth, and hope that the planet will not explode immediately during this period .

About a year later, Cloud found himself being pulled from the flow of his life by something.

He was shocked.Under normal circumstances, this is impossible. He is just sleeping in the crystal, and his body is still alive. There is no reason for him to enter the cycle of the stream of life.He asked Alice for help, but something cut him off from the planet, and he was like being isolated in a darkroom, temporarily alone and helpless.

Claude's awakening was forcibly terminated, his soul was pulled out of his body little by little, and it was gradually difficult to maintain the existence of the main body.Claude didn't know what would happen next, so when he confirmed Sephiroth's heartbeat for the last time, he sent a message to the other party with the mentality of giving it a try, asking the other party to wait for him.

Sephiroth may or may not hear it.He just hoped that his nemesis wouldn't spin out of control in his absence and then completely lose consciousness.

"Is he still alive?"

"The heartbeat was normal, but I just fell asleep after the injection."

"That's good. Does he have a special reaction to C cells?"

"I don't know yet, but the wound is no longer bleeding, and the injection should be effective. Do you want to wake him up and try?"

"Claude, wake up."

"Claude?"

At first, there was a vast expanse of whiteness in the field of vision, like an overexposed film.As the line of sight slowly focused, some blurred figures gradually appeared.

Claude took a small choke as if a newborn was breathing for the first time, and then opened his heavy eyelids with force, and found himself lying on a large laboratory table.

Experiment bench...?

Claude sat up abruptly, but his hands and feet were caught by the restraint belt.The researcher on the side pressed his shoulders and asked worriedly, "Claude, are you okay?"

Claude felt something was wrong, he glanced sideways, the hand could almost cover half of his body.Claude was taken aback, and soon realized that not only that hand, but also the shadowless lamp above his head was too big, and the people around him were even more...

……No.wrong.

It's not that those things are too big, it's that he has become smaller.

As soon as Claude had this idea, he was hit by a sharp headache.A huge flood of memories that did not belong to him flooded into his mind, from the moment he opened his eyes in the training cabin to the time he lay on this experimental table.

He saw himself in the crystal, the intricate research facilities, various experiments on himself, and even the young Sephiroth.

Cloud quickly realized what was wrong.These are the memories of this body, everything that his three-year-old clone has experienced, and he has completely inherited it from the other party.

In other words, this itself was his memory—the memory before he woke up.

"...Sephiroth!"

Claude remembered his purpose before he fell into a coma, skillfully untied the restraint belt with one hand, and jumped off the experimental platform under the astonished eyes of all the researchers.

At first, he couldn't control his three-year-old body, and fell on the threshold because of too much force.But the warrior's instinct quickly made him adapt to the new balance, and he went on a rampage all the way, and the adults behind him couldn't catch up with him at all.

Claude ran back to his and Sephiroth's room, which was temporarily empty.He stared blankly at the other party's neatly stacked quilts, and saw that the children's book on the history of the planet was still placed next to Sephiroth's pillow, and an indescribable emotion suddenly surged in his heart.

He remembered it all.

Someone dug out the sleeping self in the big void, and somehow resurrected the young Sephiroth, and finally created a clone of himself.

He was very sure that the Sephiroth here was the one in the stream of life, not a thought body or a duplicate body.But the other party has no memory of the past, only a brand new personality developed from infancy, and this personality seems to be healthier physically and mentally than when Claude was seven or eight years old.If this is acting, then Sephiroth can simply win all the best actor awards on the planet, but Claude knows it's not.

No one in this world knows his old enemy better than him.When this little Sephiroth would pull the quilt for himself, stop for himself who fell down, read a book for himself in pain, and hug himself to sleep, he knew that the other party was no longer what he knew. The Sephiroth in the movie.

Sephiroth has been completely reborn, like a blank sheet of paper, with neither hatred for the planet nor memories of Cloud.

Once the other party dies in this situation, it is no longer possible to reshape yourself by anchoring his memories.This is why he felt that the other party might dissipate in his deep sleep.

Just as Claude was immersed in his own thoughts, there was a loud noise in the central area, followed by something rushing towards the room.As soon as he was about to get out of bed to check the situation, the stream of life passed through the wall with a destructive force, washed the entire room, and then spread to a further place.

That scene was spectacular, no less than the scene when Sephiroth's demon crystals dissipated in the big void.

There was a rush of footsteps outside the door, and all the staff in the accommodation area were rushing to the central area.Claude vaguely knew that something was wrong with the crystal, but he didn't want to reveal the fact that he had recovered his memory, so he didn't dare to leave the room for the time being.

However, in this series of footsteps, another small footstep gradually approached against the flow of people.

Claude heard the door being opened, and immediately looked up to the door.

A young, delicate, and dreamlike silver-haired boy leaned against the wall panting, his bright green vertical pupils nervously sizing him up.

"...Sephiroth."

Even though he had already seen each other in the clone's memory, seeing it in reality was still mixed.

Even...he intended to investigate the reason for Sephiroth's resurrection before he came, but in the end he was ready to send him back to the stream of life.

Now that the other party has become a child, he can't do anything no matter what.

However, Sephiroth seemed to hear some terrible words, and his pupils suddenly shrank into a slit.In the next second, the other party had already rushed forward and knocked him down, with his hands firmly gripping his immature neck.

"Claude! You killed your mother!!——"

Mother? ... what mother?

Jenova's body was completely destroyed by him 200 years ago, not even a single cell was left. Sephiroth knew about this a long time ago, why now...

Claude looked blankly at the red eyes of the other party, he read the real hatred in the small vertical pupils of the other party, and the source of all this seemed to be himself.

Sephiroth really wanted to kill him.This idea only appeared in Claude's mind for a moment, and he subconsciously twisted the other's arm with his legs, and turned back with a force, forcing Sephiroth to let go of his hand.

The opponent's expression was also shocked, as if he had never known that he had such proficient fighting skills before.But soon the opponent rushed up again, this time using well-trained moves, Claude didn't dare to fight him head-on, so he could only jump off the bed and rush out the door.Sephiroth grabbed his waist the moment he jumped off the bed, and he slammed it firmly on the cheekbone with his backhand.

"Claude!!"

"What is a mother?!"

They both yelled at each other at the same time.

However, Claude found that his voice was a bit funny, because there was still a nasal and sobbing sound in it. The child's body was frightened by the violent behavior just now... Crying reflexively.

God.He hasn't cried in front of Sephiroth for almost 200 years, if the other party still has memory, this incident can be framed as his top5 history of embarrassment.

Sephiroth was also taken aback, and gradually regained his senses.

"What is a mother?" He tried to hold back the urge to sob, and asked again.

Sephiroth was silent for a long time before replying: "Mother is... our origin. The one who gave us life. We were born from his cells."

Claude caught his breath.

Where did Sephiroth know about this?He has clearly cleared all of Xenovia's information, without leaving a single name, is there any secret Shenluo laboratory that he doesn't know that has not been physically checked?

……and many more.

Did Sephiroth say "he" just now?

"So who is that person?" Claude had a bad feeling.

"You've seen it." Sephiroth let go of his hand, allowing him to crawl into a corner in a defensive posture, "The crystal in the central area—it's gone now. Cloud Strife, Your name comes from him."

Claude's expression was as if someone had stuffed a whole Xenova's tentacle into his stomach.