【SC】Endless Journey

【end】

It was a dark and long dream.

There were no sights or sounds in the dream, but there was a strange warmth.

Cloud should have felt that familiar flow, but this time he didn't.A force pulled him toward solid land, giving him a tangible sense of his own presence and quality.

He lay quietly on a small floating island in the void, unexpectedly not feeling lonely.Although he couldn't see or touch anything around him, that kind of warmth was always by his side, like a conscious life, waiting with him in the darkness for the dream to end.

Finally one day, a crack appeared in the void.

The light is like a blocked tide, rushing into his world the moment a crack is discovered.The darkness began to be constantly pushed back, and the warmth that had surrounded him for a long time also retreated into the distance.

Claude knew that this was a sign that he was about to wake up, so he turned around at the last moment before entering the white light, and asked softly to the warmth in the darkness: "Can I see you again?"

The darkness that was originally retreating suddenly stagnated for a few seconds, then collapsed sharply towards the center, and finally turned into a vague human form.

--"I will always be at your side."

Amidst the rapid weightlessness of falling, cold air suddenly poured into his chest, and Claude regained his breath.

He barely opened his heavy eyelids, and the light immediately pierced his pupils like thousands of needles.A small hand covered his eyes before he turned his head in discomfort.

"Don't rush to open your eyes, you can't adapt to this kind of light now."

Claude's body shook.For a moment he wondered if he had heard it wrong, but another voice in the room took his thoughts away.

"Sephiroth, you can't bring your own breakfast into the ward—"

Then he heard the sound of something falling to the ground, and the person who pushed the door just now rushed out again.

"—Nurse? Nurse! Come on, he's awake!!"

He tried to say something, but a sudden sense of fatigue seized his nerves.So that immature hand gently stroked his cheek again, and put his lips against his ear.

"It's okay. Go to sleep, Claude."

When Claude woke up again, he was already lying in a different room.

He forcefully propped himself up from the bed, feeling like his body was a dusty machine, every movement made the rusty joints click.

Beside his bed was a huge floor-to-ceiling window, and the golden sunset was filling the entire room through the glass.He looked sideways out of the window and found that in the distance was a scenery he had never seen before.

This is no longer a ward, but more like a bedroom.Just as Claude was about to get out of bed for a walk, the door was suddenly pushed open.

"Ah, you're awake, Claude. Would you like something to eat?"

A familiar voice came from the door, Claude looked up and saw a strange and familiar face.

... Pete?

He searched carefully in his mind, and soon remembered more details.

No, it's Zack.

"... Zack." He murmured out his friend's name.

"That's great, at least you remember me." Zack patted him happily, causing him to almost fall head-on on the carpet, "Ah, sorry, I forgot you've been asleep for so long..."

Claude's consciousness was still a little drowsy, and he didn't think of an important question until Zack helped him up.

"...Sephiroth?"

correct.He had heard Sephiroth's voice in the ward, but it wasn't the Sephiroth he knew.It was a young voice, and there were a pair of hands only for children...

"I will always be at your side."

Claude began to have a severe headache.

Zacks reacted immediately, hurriedly put down the things in his hands, and helped him back to the bed.

"I thought you would ask yourself how long you slept first." Zacks rubbed the tip of his nose, "He went to collect your supplies an hour ago, and you may stay here for a while. This is Angel's Home, he is temporarily acting as Sephiroth's guardian, so you can stay here with confidence..."

- Sephiroth is still alive.

Claude only listened to this information.

His heart twitched violently, and some pre-coma memories flooded into his mind crazily——the strange new moon in the sky, the explosion in the void of Peking University, Sephiroth's body was destroyed in front of him, and then his soul began shattered, Sephiroth rushed up before turning into a stream of life and scatter, hugging himself tightly——

"I will not destroy, and I will not let you be destroyed."

Claude suddenly hugged his head and curled up in pain.

—He remembered everything.

As the last person who should have survived, he managed to survive the explosion.

In their final moments, it was Sephiroth who patched his soul with his own, forcibly bringing him back from the brink of disappearance, and their souls became one, and they could never be separated again.

Claude was hit like never before.While he did hope that Sephiroth would remember him before he died, he never expected Sephiroth to do this.It wasn't until Zack pulled his hand away that he realized that tears were streaming down his face before he knew it.

"Are you okay?" Zack hastily handed him a towel.

"I'm fine, I just..."

Claude took the towel and fell silent for a while.He wanted to ask about Sephiroth's condition, but hesitated for a few seconds and decided to change the subject.

"How long have I slept?"

"Three years and a month." Zack seemed to have been waiting for him to ask, and now he finally let out a long breath, "God, we are all prepared that you may not wake up in your lifetime , but Sephiroth said that you can always wake up if you want, so we kept you in the hospital instead of letting Vincent take you..."

...three years.

Claude froze slightly.

He has been asleep for three years, humans are still alive, and the planet is still alive.

Sephiroth doesn't seem to be doing anything, but they all know that life on the planet may come to an end in a few hundred years, which is almost unbelievable in his knowledge of Sephiroth.

Claude involuntarily clenched the quilt, and continued to ask, "What happened in the past three years?"

Zack paused, with a look of emotion in his eyes: "During the three years you were sleeping——"

After Cloud and Sephiroth died together in the Peking University Hollow, the energy in the two finally returned to the flow of life.

As if sensing the return of this energy, Gaia began to rain for more than a month.

In some places where the original S-type has not eroded into the rock formation, the seeds buried in the deep soil thousands of years ago have begun to take root and sprout, and plants such as moss and lichen are also quietly growing.By the time the continuous rain was over, some green had sporadically appeared on the mainland.

Since the residents of the Principality of Midgar had already moved south in the early days of the disaster, many people survived in the Eastern Continent.They re-camped under the ruins of the Ancient Seed Temple under the protection of Gaia, and slowly moved back to the south of Junun a year later.

Under the auspices of the military, the factory equipment left in Zhunong resumed the production of some materials.The surviving residents began to gather in the south of Junong. The city was planned and rebuilt by the military, and everything seemed to be gradually returning to normal.But this kind of city no longer has the scale of the previous city, and is more like a factory with centralized management. Due to the shortage of resources, the military controls the distribution of all materials, free trade is not allowed, and there is no third party other than soldiers and civilians. identity.Individuals living in the city will be assigned work and receive supplies according to the workload. Housing is also assigned on a family basis, and self-construction in urban areas is not allowed.

And the place where they are now is the reconstructed southern Junong.

"I heard that the vegetation recovery is the best in the east, so Angel is also considering taking some people there to reclaim arable land and solve the food shortage problem on Zhunong's side..."

Claude gradually came back to his senses, and subconsciously asked, "East?"

"Well, the original pasture area, I remember that the chocobo farm was also there before." Zacks suddenly seemed to remember something, and slapped his thigh excitedly, "That's right! There are still hundreds of chocobos left by the army. Chocobo, we can rebuild the breeding grounds over there. Are you interested?"

Some memories suddenly appeared in Claude's mind.He thought of the endless wilderness of the chocobo farm, the undulating grassland under the breeze, and the young Sephiroth sitting at the window, and his heart suddenly became soft.

"No, thank you." He still remembered that Sephiroth was still in his body, so he couldn't stay in densely populated areas, but he was still grateful for everything his friends had done for him.

"By the way, about Sephiroth—"

He just mentioned this matter, and the two were silent for a few seconds at the same time.

Zack observed his expression, and finally spoke before him: "You want to know how he got back?"

Claude hesitated slightly and nodded.

At the end of his memory, he clearly had successfully destroyed Sephiroth's new body, and Sephiroth also used his soul to repair himself that was about to be broken, so it was impossible for the two of them to appear in this world at the same time. what the hell...

Zack sighed, looking quietly out of the window.

"Actually, about this..."

After the explosion in the Peking University Cavern ended, the people who stayed in the meeting room checked the situation in the Big Cavern via satellite for the first time.

Infrared images showed that the craters around the large cavity were almost flattened by the explosion, and there was no trace of Sephiroth in the huge abyss; then the military sent drones to the northern continent for investigation, and the optical cameras did not find the wreckage of the two.Vincent and others once thought that he and Sephiroth had died together, and everyone fell into deep sorrow, but at this time, a new change took place in the Peking University Cavern—life pouring into the Beida Cavern from all over Gaia The stream suddenly surged and rushed straight to the sky, forming cumulonimbus clouds that covered the sky and the sun.And with the gushing out of this water, Claude was also ejected from the abyss, and drifted to the edge of the impact plain with his weapon.

After the precipitation ended, the Beida Hollow had completely disappeared, replaced by a Mohuang Lake in the extreme north.The Grand Duchy once again sent troops to investigate near the lake, and finally found Claude unconscious by the lake in the southwest direction.

At that time, Claude's body had slowly recovered from the head and chest cavity to the point where the upper body was formed, and the truncated part was even wriggling and growing, so the investigation team immediately brought him back to Junon.After the diagnosis, the doctor confirmed that Claude was still alive, and at the current speed of physical regeneration, he could repair himself within two months at most, so they just put Claude back in the training cabin full of demons, waiting quietly for the day He can wake up by himself.

But what everyone didn't expect was that in the second month after he was rescued, Sephiroth appeared in a forgotten corner of the reference room.

According to Zack's description, the day Sephiroth first appeared was like a little snake just hatched from an egg shell, wet all over, and the tips of his silver hair kept flowing with magic.He only looked like two or three years old. He probably crawled out of the sealed reference room through the ventilation duct, and then came to Claude's ward by some means.

"That's terrifying, even scarier than his adult appearance." Zack tried his best to describe the scene at that time, "No one knows where he came from, let alone what purpose he came with, anyway He just appeared in your ward, standing by your bed."

"...I know." Claude understood his feelings very well. He was also greatly frightened by this incident when he first woke up in the institute nine years ago.

Afterwards, Sephiroth explained to others that some scientific research materials were also transferred when the Grand Duchy evacuated, including specimens of several failed products in the Catholm cloning project, so when Claude was brought back to Junon, Sephiroth suddenly sensed the existence of those failed products, so he immediately let one of the most developed samples continue to grow, and then controlled it to return to Cloud.

Although other people don't know what the so-called failed products are, Claude is very clear about their origin—that is, the specimens from C-01 to C-06, so he only found the experimental records in the research institute. What happened to them afterwards was not mentioned.

For the next three years, Sephiroth stayed by his side as a child.Although the Grand Duchy considered him dangerous and needed to be detained, Vincent resolutely stopped this decision.Vincent believes that his soul needs to be stabilized by the power of Sephiroth, and the little Sephiroth is not the body of Sephiroth, but just a terminal existence, and there is no point in detaining him, so Sephiroth was able to stay in the his side.

Claude pondered for a long time after listening, and suddenly asked: "Where is Vincent?"

He remembered that Zacks had mentioned the other party at the beginning, and based on his understanding of Vincent, if the other party hadn't appeared in the ward immediately, he probably wasn't in Junon anymore.

"He and Nanaki went back to the Cosmic Canyon. He said that if you don't want to stay here after waking up, you can also go to the Cosmic Canyon to find them." Zack's answer confirmed his thoughts.

"White——" before he finished asking, Zacks replied first: "He found his child and wife in the camp of the ancient temple, and now he works as a physics teacher in a temporary school here. If you Want to see him, how about we make an appointment to have dinner on a weekend night?"

"...What about Genesis?"

"Genesis left two years ago, he said, uh... 'Only you and Angel would like this kind of family life', and then suddenly disappeared one day. Vincent said they still have a lot more Things have to be dealt with, such as repairing the cracks at the bottom of the lake in the Peking University Hole, so it should not come back within a few years."

Claude also wanted to ask about Angel's situation, but thinking of the ambiguous look in Genesis's eyes when he saw Genesis for the last time, he could roughly understand why he left.Zack and Angel will rebuild their home here and live a normal life. This is the best gift they can leave to the two of them.

It wasn't until the sunset had slowly fallen to the edge of the window sill that he whispered: "Sorry, can you give me a moment?"

Zack understood, so he left other things in the bedroom and left the room gently.

Claude pushed the glass door behind the curtain and walked to the balcony.He saw a silvery-white moon hanging high in the sky covered with rays of light, and suddenly a strange emotion surged in his heart.

"Claude."

He heard that voice again.

This time he was pretty sure it wasn't a memory or his hallucination, but Sephiroth's voice trying to talk to him.

It was so close to him, clear and deep, echoing in the depths of his soul.When he realized its existence, he seemed to suddenly enter another person's perspective—a small, low perspective, standing quietly in a long corridor, with a strange but familiar door in front of him.

"...Sephiroth." Claude whispered.

The door behind him was pushed open by a child's hand.

Claude turned around, and the dreamy silver-haired boy who had repeatedly appeared in his memory was standing at the door, his vertical pupils were full of maturity and calmness that did not belong to his age.

After looking at each other for a while, Claude walked over and hugged each other.

"Sephiroth..."

Apart from the other party's name, he could hardly find words to express his feelings.He buried himself deeply in the soft silver hair, tried his best to feel the real body temperature, and the moist heat appeared in the eye sockets again.

In fact, they can read each other's thoughts directly through the soul. If they are not blocked, those thoughts will flood into their minds like a tide, but Claude still wants to communicate with him face to face.Sephiroth was very happy about this, and briefly hugged him back before separating the two.

"You miss me." The silver-haired boy raised his jaw slightly, showing a smug smile.

That was exactly the tone of an adult Sephiroth, and Claude's emotion was choked back to his heart.

"Do you have to keep this look?" He couldn't help asking.

"I thought you would like me better." The other party blinked, "Considering you like C-07 so much."

"So whose body is this?" Claude sighed helplessly.

"C-06. What, you prefer the original me?"

"..." With such a face, he said what the Sephiroth he knew well would say, and there was an indescribably weird feeling.

The other party immediately received his thoughts, so he spread out the huge black wings to wrap himself in it.In the next second, the wings turned into feathers and dispersed, and the Sephiroth in his memory returned to him.

"But it's just an image." Sephiroth knew what he was wondering about. "The strength of this body is only as strong as what you saw just now, so it is meaningless to become like this."

"But it will reduce my guilt a little..." Claude murmured and reached out to him, stroking Sephiroth's cheek, and was gently covered by the other hand.

Sephiroth leaned down and kissed him, then pressed those flat, soft lips to his forehead.

"There will only be you and me left on this planet."

He could feel the vibration of the airflow in the opponent's mouth from the skin, and the vibration went all the way down the capillaries to his heart.

"At that point we'll have to wander the dark universe together, looking for the next planet to live on. It's an endless journey, and we'll have nothing but each other—so you'll have to learn to accept me."

The hand clasped around his waist gradually became stronger, and finally the two hugged each other again.

Claude fell silent again.

He knew that Sephiroth was right, although they could no longer freely choose their lives, but that was the price Sephiroth paid to keep him alive, and he would cherish this hard-earned love.

"I can think about it." After a long time, Claude slightly pushed the distance between the two, showing a soft smile, "But before that, you must learn how to love someone correctly."

Sephiroth looked at him, and raised the corners of his lips slightly: "It's fair."

Their long past is over, and those pains and struggles will gradually settle in the depths of memory over time.But they all know this is not the end, but a new beginning.

What is waiting ahead is more unpredictable future. They may survive in that future, or they may perish in the dark universe. However, they will accompany each other anyway and witness each other's life until the last moment.

It will be an endless journey.

END

【postscript】

Some texts are not clearly written, but are actually set in the background of the story, hoping to help readers and friends understand the story.

1. "Song of Gaia" is a fairy tale-like picture book written by people who believe in astrology (the original work is not available).

2. The disaster mentioned in "Song of Gaia" is actually Jenova, not Sephiroth.

3. The story of the Order of the Redeemer was adapted by Carter Holm based on the knowledge Sephiroth gave him and the song of Gaia.

4. Before the publicity of the Order of the Redeemer, people actually didn’t know why the meteorite fell in the FF7 book, nor did they know what Claude and what he did back then, let alone Sephiroth (he All of Cloud's files were destroyed by Cloud and Shinra, and Cloud's files were all destroyed at his own request).The matter of planetary heroes was compiled by Carter Holm into the classics of the Order of the Redeemer and spread. The main purpose is to attract believers and invest in Peking University to find Cloud's crystal.

5. The radius set by Gaia in the article is only 1/4 of that of the earth, and its density is similar to that of the earth.The diameter of the meteorite is 10km, and its density is similar to that of the moon.So the height where the meteorite is at the end is actually a rough Roche limit (not necessarily accurate).

6. The mass of the meteorite is actually the sum of the mass calculated by using the above data according to the original S-shaped surface area and thickness covering Gaia at that time.Sephiroth actually estimated its mass in this way, but he calculated it super fast on the spot, so he told Claude that in Chapter 33.

7. Sephiroth didn't want to use the original S-type from the beginning. The watershed of the incident was when he went to Peking University to see it and judged that he might not be able to defeat this number of evolved versions of himself, so he thought of swallowing each other with the original S-type. Use the method of will competition to break through the enemy from the inside.

8. According to Sephiroth’s plan, after he is swallowed by the original S-type, his thoughts will become a virus implanted in the original S-type, so that the original S-type population can extract all the power to an ultimate perfect body And exhaustion is equivalent to killing the "collective" in Jenova's collective consciousness until only oneself is left, so that the new creature has only its own consciousness no matter what.

9. But there are also risks in doing so. The risk is that the new self may not be himself (does not have the previous self-will), so he bet on Claude to find his self-will, as long as Claude comes to him as he expected And fight him, successfully let him regain his self-will, and then he will win whether he lives or dies.

There are two so-called win-win situations: if he is alive, he can extract Gaia's remaining life stream, and then leave Gaia with Claude.If he dies, the soul does not return to the life stream of Gaia, but the life stream of the meteorite (his relationship with the meteorite is similar to a terminal and a host), he can recreate himself from the meteorite, and return to Gaia to continue his life. plan of.

10. Claude thought that Sephiroth was dead when he was swallowed by the original S-type, so he chose to use the energy of the giant magic spar to avenge Sephiroth, but since he made this choice, he has no choice but to is to lose.

Two must-lose scenarios: If he can't kill Sephiroth, he dies, and most likely the planet too.If he could kill Sephiroth, he would still die.

11. So Claude and Genesis, Vincent and Nanaki also prepared plan B: if Claude and Sephiroth die together successfully, Sephiroth may revive himself from the meteor, in order to prevent him from coming back When approaching Gaia, other people will use the white magic stone to activate the sacred, and the planet will generate a shield. Sephiroth cannot re-descend to Gaia from space, so he can only leave directly.If Claude and Sephiroth fail to perish together, the others will activate the black magic stone to summon the meteorite, let the newly summoned meteorite collide with Sephiroth's meteorite, and then use the white magic stone to block the meteorite fragments, and then find a way to fight with Sephiroth. Rose's physical body fights.

12. Originally, Sephiroth knew that no matter whether he won or lost the final battle, he had already won.But when he found that Claude was dead anyway, his purpose changed from being a winner in life to finding a way to keep Claude alive, so he gave up the chance to leave Gaia and chose to use his soul to repair Claude. Lauder's soul.Although this can keep Claude's soul from being broken, because Claude is still in Gaia's cycle, Sephiroth will also be forced to stay in Gaia's cycle. All efforts were in vain.

13. In fact, because Sephiroth's meteorite is still floating in Gaia's satellite orbit, Sephiroth will have the opportunity to return to the meteorite to take Cloud away in the future, and his plan is finally realized.

14. Finally, thank you for reading this far, and goodbye if you are destined~