The mighty have fallen

“The mighty have fallen”
Part 14


After calming Sephiroth down, Cloud started up Fenrir and opened the cargo bay ramp. Sephiroth got onto the bike behind him and they rode back to the base encampment. Once there, everyone teamed up and made their way down to the city and to their designated spots. As the group split up to go to their assigned areas, Cloud thought of something important. He stopped his bike beside Sephiroth before the taller man went in and cut the engine temporarily so that they could hear one another.

“Sephiroth, the materia you’ve got equipped…” Cloud began hesitantly, hating to have to do this.

“I know,” Sephiroth sighed, giving him an exasperated look. “I’m not to use it against anyone, I’m only to defend others with it.”

“And yourself,” Cloud finished, looking at him with apologetic tenderness.

~It’s impossible to be angry with you when you give me those soulful eyes, Cloud,~ Sephiroth thought silently, ~Even when you act like I’m going to go on a murdering rampage at any moment.~ He nodded mutely at the blonde, trying to force his expression into something that wouldn’t reveal his disappointment.

Cloud saw the frustrated resignation behind the proud man’s green eyes and he felt awful. “Hey,” he called as Sephiroth started to walk away. When the other man turned to look at him, he explained, “It’s not really you I don’t trust. You know that, right?’

The shadows lifted from Sephiroth’s eyes and he looked a little surprised, as if he hadn’t realized that. “I see,” he murmured.

Cid was watching the exchange with a frowning, puzzled expression. At this point, Cloud didn’t care if the pilot figured out what was going on between him and Sephiroth. “Take care of yourself, Sephiroth. You too, Cid,” He called. He turned to Nanaki, who was waiting beside him. “Ready?”

“I am.” Nanaki looked a little odd wearing the specially designed headpiece with the microphone and ear set, so that he and Cloud could communicate over the sound of Fenrir’s engine. It looked almost like a strangely designed muzzle. Cloud likewise wore a headset. They took a moment to test them before leaving.

Together, they went on to the west barricade to get through to the inner city. Cid and Sephiroth took the opposite direction to the other barricade. As they walked, the pilot glanced at Sephiroth out the corner of his eye. He produced a fresh cigar from his pocket and bit off the end, still watching the other man as he lit it up. Sephiroth looked sidelong at him and frowned.

“If you’re going to smoke that, walk three paces behind me.”

Cid paused and thought about making a comment that the air was already polluted with dust and smoke, but even he wasn’t reckless enough to ignore the signs of the general’s impatience and test his luck. “Touchy,” he said as he did as the man advised and fell behind a few paces.

He watched Sephiroth’s shining, silver hair move in the sluggish breeze as if it had a life of its own. The way Cloud had looked at the man earlier didn’t give Cid the impression of hero worship so much as infatuation. Watching Sephiroth from behind, Cid could almost understand. ~The man’s got prettier hair than most women.~

Prompted by his observations of the way Sephiroth managed to combine grace and masculinity, Cid blurted out; “Hey Sephiroth, what’s the deal with you and our boy?”

Sephiroth didn’t pause and his slight smile was unseen by Cid. “The deal?” he questioned casually.

“Yeah. You seem awful chummy with each other—a little too chummy, from where I’m standing.”

Sephiroth stopped and turned to regard him with opaque green eyes. “What exactly are you implying, Highwind?”

Cid shrugged. “I guess I wanna know if you two are…you know…” He raised his right hand and let the wrist go limp suggestively, twiddling his fingers.

Sephiroth noted the gesture and pretended ignorance. “Arthritic?” He questioned.

Cid scowled. “No! I mean, are you a pair of fruits?”

Sephiroth tilted his head. “No, we’re a pair of men. Is the pollution in the air making you hallucinate, Captain Highwind? Perhaps you aren’t up to this mission.”

The pilot groaned and pulled his cigar out of his mouth, smacking himself on the forehead. “No you idiot! Don’t make me say it, you know what I mean!”

“I might and I might not,” Sephiroth replied, enjoying the other man’s discomfort. “Why can’t you say it, are you afraid that by doing so you’ll become whatever it is you’re inquiring about?”

Cid took the bait, unable to back down from a challenge. “I can say it, I was just tryin’ to be polite like Cloud asked! Are you two gay or something?”

“I prefer the term ‘homosexual’, but yes, we are,” Sephiroth responded mildly, turning back around to continue walking. “Is that a problem for you?”

Cid hurried to catch up as he worked out the admission in his mind. He’d always wondered about Cloud on some level but he figured the kid was too tough to be a fruit, thinking his lack of interest in girls was just a symptom of being too wound up. He’d never dreamed that Sephiroth liked cock, despite his angelic countenance. “So are you doing the ugly?”

“The…the what?” Sephiroth responded, shooting a scowl over his shoulder at the other man.

“You know,” Cid elaborated, “The ugly! Stuffing each other’s stockings, wall-banging, pluggin’ the pipes…are you fucking or not?”

Sephiroth rolled his eyes and grunted with annoyance. “I don’t know why you’re so concerned with what Strife and I may or may not do on our own time, but this is the end of this discussion. We have a job to do.”

Cid puffed his stogy and propped his spear on his left shoulder. “Hey, I’m just looking out for the kid. He’s decent people and he’s had a shitty enough time of it without getting his heart broken on top of everything else. If that pisses you off, too bad.”

“Breaking his heart isn’t my intention,” stated the general, keeping his attention focused ahead of them at the barricade they were approaching.

Cid almost tripped on some rubble and he cursed as he recovered his balance. “What’s your intention, then?”

Sephiroth stopped again and turned to frown at the man. “What’s anyone’s intention in this world, Captain Highwind? What makes you think mine should be any different?”

“Because you’re different, that’s why,” Cid answered, not flinching beneath the general’s stare. “I’m not stupid enough to think you’d let some fluffy feelings get in the way of bigger ambitions. Just so you know, if you hurt that kid, my harpoon’s going up your ass.”

Sephiroth arched a brow. “And here I thought you were straight.”

Cid flushed and shook his weapon at him. “THIS harpoon! I wasn’t making a fucking euphemism!”

“You can try,” Sephiroth said calmly.

“Don’t think I won’t and don’t think the rest of the posse won’t be waiting in line behind me if you hurt him,” Cid growled.

Sephiroth sighed and looked him in the eye. “Let me just make this clear to you now, so that we can conduct our part in this operation without further distraction. If the world were ending tomorrow, Cloud would be the only person on this planet I would consider worth saving. The rest of you can go straight to hell for all I care, but he’s…” Sephiroth stopped, his pupils dilating wide with shock at what he’d said out loud and how close he came to saying even more…and all to this uncultured, crass stranger.

Cid pulled his cigar out of his mouth and stared at Sephiroth with an expression of surprise on his face. “Well, I’ll be goddamned,” he sputtered. “You’ve got a heart in there somewhere after all and it looks like Cloud owns it!”

Sephiroth’s expression darkened and Cid realized he’d just been privy to information unintentionally given. “I’ll keep it to myself,” he said wisely.

The general nodded once, curtly. Then the spun around and continued on to the barricade at a brisk, purposeful pace. Cid shook his head and followed, working things over in his mind. The revelation that both Cloud and Sephiroth were fudge packers was startling enough, but Sephiroth’s accidental declaration of the depth of his feelings was an all-out mind fuck.

~*****************************~

“Cloud, there’s someone trapped in the collapsed building by that pillar over there,” Nanaki gestured with his nose in a southeastern direction.

Cloud didn’t question the lion, having acquired a healthy respect for his superior sense of smell and hearing long ago. His senses were another reason he’d chosen to take him with into the old city, because he knew it would be harder to find trapped citizens there on his own, given the increased number of damaged structures.

Cloud steered Fenrir in the direction Nanaki indicated, swerving around debris and rubble as he went. The lion reached the building before he did and found a familiar young blonde woman crouched by one of the leaning walls of the building. “Are you injured?” he asked her.

Elena raised her tear-streaked face to him and shook her head. “No, but Reno and Rude…” She saw Cloud coming and struggled to her feet. She must have been crouching like that for some time to be so stiff. “Strife, over here!” She called, though he’d clearly already seen her. “Reno and Rude are trapped in there and we’re getting no reception to call for help!”

Cloud pulled Fenrir to a stop a few yards away, noting how unstable the building looked and wanting to keep the bike out of range if it collapsed completely. “Aren’t you guys supposed to be working between the city borders?” he called as he jogged over.

“We were, but Reno thought he heard someone shouting on the other side of the wall and we went to check it out,” She explained, “We followed him and he was right on the money. Some stupid teenagers thought they’d be cool and sneak into the old city just before the geyser erupted. A beam fell on one of them and his friend was trying to get him out. We went into the house to help and the ceiling started falling in, and Rude shoved me out the door right before it collapsed.”

“Are you sure they’re still alive?” Cloud questioned.

“Cloud, is that you?” Shouted a muffled voice from somewhere inside the wreck. “What the hell are you waiting for? Get us out of here, Rude’s in bad shape, yo!”

Elena smirked impulsively. “Does that answer your question?”

Cloud sighed and started searching for an opening to crawl in through. Nanaki helped, sniffing around and occasionally sneezing at the dust. Elena shook her head doubtfully as she watched them. “I already tried that. I think someone’s going to have to go back and get help.”

“Here, I’ve found a hole!” Nanaki cried out.

“Guess I missed it,” Elena sighed as she and Cloud went to the spot and examined it. “Hmm, it’s pretty small. Reno and the kids might fit through with some digging but Rude never will.”

“I can widen it a bit,” Nanaki said, “but not much. One of you will have to go in to assist the others, as I’ll be too large even if I widen it.”

“I’ll go,” Cloud said, “I’m pretty good at squeezing through tight spaces and Elena looks too wiped to help get anyone through from the other side.”

Elena opened her mouth to argue, but changed her mind. Cloud was right and she’d already strained a muscle trying to get in to help her associates earlier. “I’ll keep trying to reach Tseng on the phone, I guess.”

Nanaki began to dig and Cloud pulled away the larger chunks of rubble. Reno started asking questions and babbling nonsense until Cloud lost patience and yelled at him to shut up. “We’re going as fast as we can,” the blonde snapped, “just stay where you are and wait!”

“Ca-ranky!” Reno’s faint voice said.

“God, he’s a pest,” Cloud grunted, provoking a smile from Nanaki.

After several minutes of digging and clearing debris, they expanded the hole enough so that Cloud could squirm through. Nanaki and Elena waited anxiously as the blond slowly progressed to the other side.

Cloud couldn’t see a thing, but he had a small flashlight in one of his pockets and as soon as he got through the short tunnel, he pulled it out and clicked it on. Two boys that looked to be around fourteen or fifteen were lying on the dusty wooden floor a few feet in front of him. One of them had his leg trapped under a beam that was hanging down at an angle from the ceiling. They were both awake and aside from the trapped foot, both of them appeared to be only a little bruised and shaken.

“You okay?” Cloud asked.

“Yes sir,” the one without the trapped foot said. “Jenkins is just stuck. Can you get his foot free?”

“Give me a minute and I’ll try,” Cloud answered as he scanned the rest of the room.

There was a gaping hole in the floor beside the boys and Cloud deduced that there was a cellar beneath the room. On the other side of the hole lay Rude, with his head pillowed in Reno’s lap and his stylish black glasses lying broken on the floor next to him. Reno had torn part of his own shirt off and wound it around the larger man’s close shaved head as a bandage. Cloud could see a dark blood stain on the material.

“Hey Cloud,” Reno greeted with unshakable cool. “’Sup? Rude’s going to be major pissed when he finds out his glasses broke.”

“I think that’s the least of his worries right now,” Cloud said, his Mako eyes studying the unconscious Turk with faint concern.

A little fear crept into Reno’s expression and the redhead looked down at his partner. “Yeah, he took a bad hit trying to get Elena out of the way. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad she’s safe, but…” He sighed and shook his head.

“We’ll get everyone out of here,” Cloud promised. “Nanaki, can you hear me?”

“I can hear you, Cloud,” Responded the lion through the receiver.

“We’ve got two boys down here but they aren’t badly hurt. One of them has his foot trapped under a beam and I’m going to try to get it free. Rude’s taken the brunt of it and we’ll need to get him to a medic as fast as we can.”

“Shall I go and get some help?” Nanaki asked.

“I think that’s a good idea,” Cloud grunted as he made it to the side of the two kids and started pulling at the beam. “This building’s pretty unstable and it could—“

The beam shifted under Cloud’s hands and freed the boy’s foot, but as soon as it did there was an ominous rumble from overhead.

Reno looked up as the ceiling began to crack and plaster rained down. “Fucking typical,” he groaned.

“Into the hole!” Cloud hollered, dragging both of the teenagers and unceremoniously dumping them into the cellar. Reno did the same with Rude, grunting and swearing as he rolled the heavier man over the side before dropping in himself.

“Cloud!” Nanaki’s voice cried over the comm. Unit.

There was no time to answer him. The blonde rolled away from a falling chunk of ceiling and swung his legs over the edge of the hole. Something hit him hard in the shoulder and he fell gracelessly into the hole with the others. He felt a stab of agony in his thigh when he landed and he reached down to find it impaled on something hard and metallic. He felt someone grab his jacket and start dragging him away from the opening above and under shelter. The pain was so intense that he blacked out.

~*****************************~

“Cloud!” Nanaki shouted as the rumbling stopped and he began to dig desperately. “Cloud, answer me!”

Elena was next to him, her efforts less effective but just as determined. “Rude! Reno!”

Together they struggled to find a way into the mess, hollering for their comrades until their throats were raw and digging until their hands and paws were bleeding. Elena saw movement out of the corner of her eye and she turned. There was a pack of what may have once been wolves coming toward them, but now they were hairless, their teeth were like daggers in their oversized maws, and their eyes glowed with an unholy green light. The pack spotted the two of them and began to howl and charge.

“Company!” She yelled, flipping the safety of her gun off.

Nanaki looked and did a quick count of the pack. “Too many,” he growled. “Get onto my back and hold on tightly!”

“We can’t just leave them here!”

“We must!” Nanaki snapped. “It will take those beasts several hours to dig through the ruin and reach our friends, if they could even do it at all. It’s us they want now and we can’t take them alone!”

With that said, Nanaki activated one of the red Materia he had equipped on his bangle and he snapped his teeth over Elena’s jacket tails and tugged. “Comf onf! It won’f keef dem bufsy forefer!”

Elena gaped for a moment as a goliath humanoid figure rose up from the ground and tore a slab of concrete out of the ruined street. Nanaki’s teeth closed over her ankle, hard enough to sting without breaking the skin. “OUCH! Okay, I’m coming!”

She climbed onto the lion’s back and leaned forward, laying flat against him and putting her arms around his neck. When he was certain she was clinging tightly enough to him, Nanaki ran. The sound of the crash as the Titan summons dropped the slab of concrete on top of some of the pursuing beasts made her wince and she buried her face in her companion’s fur and shut her eyes. She felt his muscles bunch beneath her and she squeezed tightly as he leaped and bounded over a fallen column.

Slowly, the howls of the pack grew fainter as they fell behind and Elena knew that if it weren’t for Nanaki, she’d be ripped to shreds and in their bellies by now. “Thank you,” she choked, grateful despite her fears for her partners’ safety.

“Thank me when we find the others and get some help, Miss.” Nanaki panted. Then he began to howl…which Elena thought was very strange considering that he resembled a big cat more than a canine of any sort.

~********************************~

“Hold it!” Tifa yelled as she heard the familiar howl in the distance. “That’s Nanaki…something’s happened.”

They had taken down nearly a dozen odd, wingless bird creatures and escorted two families to the barricade so far. They were just heading back in to search for more when Nanaki’s howl cut through the air. Cait Sith and Yuffie stopped in their tracks and turned around to look at Tifa.

“Doesn’t sound good, does it?” said Yuffie.

“No,” Tifa agreed, listening with her head cocked to the side. “It’s hard to tell where he is with the echoes but I’m sure if there’s trouble, he’s heading for one of the blockades. We’d better go back to meet him.”

The three of them wasted no time in returning to the barricade, hoping that the others would meet up with them. When they got there, Barret whistled from his station on the wall.

“Yo Tifa, I can see Red heading for the middle from here! He’s carrying somebody with blonde hair on his back!”

~Cloud!~ Tifa thought immediately. Fear for her friend lent her speed and she outran Yuffie, who was usually faster than she was.

They met up between the barricaded areas and Tifa wasn’t sure what to think or feel when she saw that the person clinging to Nanaki’s back wasn’t Cloud at all, but a woman. She recognized her as Elena.

“Where is Cloud? What happened?” Tifa asked Nanaki.

Cid and Sephiroth approached from the East, with Vincent close behind. Elena slid shakily off of the lion’s back and looked around in a daze. Nanaki waited for the others to reach them before explaining what happened. “I couldn’t reach Cloud on the comm. Unit after the building collapsed completely,” Nanaki said, “I don’t know if he’s alive or not!”

The lion was so upset that he tilted his head back and began to howl again with grief. Sephiroth approached Nanaki and slapped the back of his head without warning. The lion’s howl ended with a choke and he stared up at the swordsman in bewildered anger.

“Cloud is alive and your hysterics won’t help keep him that way,” Sephiroth said stonily. “Where is he?”

“How do you know he’s alive?” Tifa asked hopefully.

Sephiroth tapped his temple with a gloved finger. “If he weren’t, my constraints would be lifted. I can still feel them in place.”

“The building is just outside the old sector 7 slums,” Nanaki said with a snuffle. “We must hurry!” Everyone tended to forget that wise as he was, Nanaki was still young by his tribe’s standards and the thought of losing a loved one made the cub in him rear its head. Yuffie went to her knees and hugged him around the neck.

“It’s okay, we’ll get him out!” She said. “Don’t cry.”

The cheerful tune of Elena’s cellular phone ringing startled all of them. Hardly believing it when she looked at the screen and saw the ID, she gasped and put it on speaker. “RENO??”

“Yo, Elena?” Reno coughed through the static. The connection wasn’t good and his voice kept cutting in and out. “Can’t believe…*crackle*…got you!…*crackle*…bringing help?”

“We’re coming,” Elena said urgently. “How is everyone?”

“Rude’s still out…*crackle*…bruises but I’m okay…*crackle*…Cloud’s…*crackle*…he’s hurt bad…*crackle*…bleeding everywhere, man! Hurry…*crackle*…hell up!” The connection died and Elena smacked the phone in frustration.

Through her own fear and concern, Tifa noticed the way Sephiroth’s expression changed when Reno said Cloud was hurt and bleeding. Barret noticed it too and the big man did a double take. Sephiroth had gone pale and his lips compressed into a tight line, while the slits of his pupils widened.

Sephiroth knelt before Nanaki and spoke in a low voice with calm that was obviously forced. “I need you to take me to Cloud, now. Can you do that?”

Nanaki nodded. “How quickly can you climb?”

“I don’t need to climb,” Sephiroth said as he stood up straight and drew his masamune. “Just guide me and I’ll clear a path. The rest of you can follow behind. Someone needs to get troops to come and guard the opening I’m going to make.”

Cait Sith immediately hopped away and shouted for guards with his megaphone. It was only because the WRO militia knew that the cat was representing Reeve that they agreed to allow further destruction of city structures for the newest rescue operation.

Nanaki looked doubtful that Sephiroth could really clear a path as he said, but he didn’t question the man. He led the way, taking the group to the wall that he thought was nearest to the direction they needed to be heading. Sephiroth slashed his sword in a wide V pattern, so quickly it was hard to follow the motion. The waiting troops hollered in surprised amazement when a section of the wall broke away, sliced cleanly through as if it were paper. The impact of the falling slab shook the ground and Sephiroth went through the opening without hesitation, motioning for Nanaki to come with.

“I’m sho’ glad he’s on our side,” Barret rumbled as he and the others followed behind.

“Or at least, he’s on Cloud’s side,” Vincent observed.

“Yeah, did you see his face when Reno said Cloud was hurt?” Yuffie whispered to Tifa.

“I did,” the barmaid whispered back, watching the general’s back as he made his way through the city borders, hacking apart anything that stood in the way.

Something swooped out of the sky, attracted to the commotion. Tifa started to shout a warning as it dove at Sephiroth but the silver-haired man caught it with one hand and snapped its neck before it could scratch him. He tossed the carcass aside absently and continued on without pause, urging Nanaki in a firm voice to pick up the pace.

“Wow, he’s got it bad,” Yuffie whispered with awe.

“Got what bad?” Elena questioned.

Yuffie rolled her eyes at the Turk. “The same thing you’ve got for Tseng, doofus.”

Elena looked up ahead at Sephiroth with wide eyes. “You mean he’s got it for Cloud? No way!”

“Shhh,” Yuffie cautioned when the general glanced over his shoulder to regard them with narrowed eyes. “Don’t piss him off!”

Sephiroth cut down another wall and was forced to roll aside as it fell forward instead of back. When the chunk of concrete settled, he leaped onto it easily and continued. Vincent and Nanaki were the only ones with the stride and agility to keep pace with him. The others helped each other over the slab and followed gamely.

They had to fight off roaming mutations twice more before they reached the area where Cloud and the others were trapped. When they arrived, the remainder of the large pack of canine beasts that had forced Nanaki and Elena to flee were surrounding the collapsed house, digging and growling in an attempt to reach the trapped occupants.

Sephiroth rushed forward without a word, slicing through their ranks. “No spells!” He shouted as the others hurried to help. “Any explosions could cause further collapse.”

Nanaki winced, realizing that his earlier use of the summon Materia may have very well made Cloud’s situation worse. It was too late to worry about it now, however. He launched himself at a wolf-beast that had spotted them and broken away from the pack. The two of them went down in a tangle of fangs, fur and claws, snarling as they grappled.

Vincent, Elena and Barret provided excellent ranged cover while the rest of them rushed in to take the creatures down. Tifa kicked one creature aside as it went for Cid’s back, and he in turn speared another that was leaping for Yuffie. The slender ninja somersaulted aside and threw her Conformer at another beast, hitting it between the eyes before it could reach her. Cait Sith hollered orders to his mog and it hopped around and bopped any beasts within range on the head, crushing their skulls.

Sephiroth spun, slashed and dove through the fray. In the dim light he caught a glimpse of something gleaming and he made his way towards it. It was Cloud’s sword. Sephiroth picked it up with one hand while blocking an attacking beast with his masamune. Another creature took the opportunity to get past his guard and it bit into his leather-clad arm just as he finished picking up Cloud’s weapon. With a snarl, he raised his boot and kicked the mutt off, hardly feeling the teeth tear through his gear and into his arm as he forced the beast off of him. Gunfire exploded and the mutation fell to someone’s bullets.

Sephiroth didn’t slow; his mind was focused only on destroying the opposition and getting Cloud out of the wreckage.

~****************************~

“Hey Cloud, do ya hear that?” Reno said urgently, shaking the blonde to keep him aware. “There’s fighting going on up there. I think our buddies are here.”

The rest of his shirt had gone to making a tourniquet for Cloud’s leg once he and the kids pulled the shard of metal free of his thigh, but thankfully Reno still had his jacket to keep him somewhat warm. The scrap that Cloud had fallen on was thin and narrow, so the wound thankfully wasn’t wide and Reno was confident that he’d stopped the worst of the bleeding in time.

“Yo, Strife…wake up, man.” Reno slapped the blonde’s pale cheeks, disliking the cold feel of his skin and the white shade of his lips. “Come on, don’t go into shock on me now. You and Rude are gonna owe me a new shirt and some therapy when this is over!”

Rude groaned and Reno’s eyes snapped to him in relief. “Rude? You with me?”

“A house fell on me,” the other Turk complained, putting a hand to his head and groaning.

“Yeah, it blows. Strife fell on a piece of metal and he’s practically bled white. The poor sucker was trying to get us out, can you believe it?” Reno smacked Cloud once more and he was rewarded with a soft moan and a flutter of golden lashes. The redhead shifted the flashlight down to check on Cloud’s leg. The crimson stain was still spreading over the shirt but it was doing so at a slower rate than before. “Hey Rude, can you get over here and help me tighten this thing?”

“Stop talking, you’re making my head hurt worse,” Rude grunted as he gingerly sat up. With some effort, he crawled over to where Reno and the two boys were. “Hold his leg steady and keep him from squirming,” he said.

“Hmmm, maybe I shouldn’t have woke him up, yo?” Reno said in hindsight as he clamped his hands down on Cloud’s leg to hold it still and the boys braced the blonde’s wrists.

“Too late now,” Rude grunted. He gripped the ends of the makeshift tourniquet and pulled tight.

Cloud cried out raggedly and Reno yanked his tie off and stuffed it in his mouth.

“What the hell are you doing, Mister?” one of the boys asked.

“Keeping him from biting his tongue, kid,” Reno said as he went back to holding Cloud’s leg down. He winced as the blue eyes flared open feverishly and the young man bucked. “Easy,” Reno said in as soothing a voice as he could muster. “Sucks to be you right now, but believe it or not this is for your own good.”

Rude pulled the shirt as tight as he could get it, shooting a quietly sympathetic look at Cloud when he struggled in agony. “Sorry kid.” He tied a firmer knot than what his partner had done and sat back. “That’s as good as it gets, man.”

Suddenly there was the sound of furious activity above their heads. There was a combination of different noises—grinding stone, metallic ringing and grunts of exertion. Reno and Rude looked at each other and then looked up, where the rubble was being cleared. Some of it shifted loose and Rude instinctively covered Cloud’s body with his.

A black-gloved hand thrust through the small opening created and the fingers spread wide. A scintillating wall of light spread from the fingers, creating a protective shield over the occupants below. Reno breathed a sigh of relief and hollered out; “Good thinking! We’re all here waiting!”

When the debris was lifted away and Sephiroth dropped down to regard them with glowing eyes, Reno wasn’t so relieved. The general caught sight of Cloud and from his vantage point, he saw two young men holding the blonde down, a gag stuffed into his mouth and Rude laying on top of him.

“Uh, it’s not what it looks like!” Reno said quickly when he saw Sephiroth’s expression and guessed what he must be thinking. “Rude, move man! Show him the fucking leg before he—“

Sephiroth’s blade was pressing hard against Rude’s shoulder before he could even begin to do as Reno urged. “Get...Off…Of…Him,” the general said in a lethal tone. The sound of other people talking above drifted down but nobody dared to call out to them.

Rude rolled away from Cloud, slowly and carefully. He held his hands up in a surrendering gesture. “I was just protecting him,” he said nervously.

Sephiroth’s gaze went to the shirt tied around Cloud’s thigh and he sheathed his weapon. He knelt smoothly and without saying a word to any of them, he slid his arms under Cloud’s shoulders and knees and lifted him carefully. The blonde’s head fell back limply, his eyes fluttering shut. Sephiroth held him closer and stared down at his face.

“Sephiroth,” called Tifa’s voice from above, “do you have him?”

“Yes,” he answered, still staring at the young man in his arms. “He’s unconscious.”

“Lift him up,” she called, “Barret and Vincent can take him.”

Sephiroth hesitated.

“Did you hear me?” Tifa called urgently.

“I heard you,” Sephiroth responded.

“Well lift him up, then! Do you want him to die?!”

Sephiroth snapped out of his daze. No, he didn’t want Cloud to die…he just didn’t want to relinquish him to anyone else’s hands. When he’d heard his lover cry out in pain and found him in what appeared to be a compromised position with the Turks and the teenagers, he’d felt protective urges far stronger than what he’d felt that day he blocked the pipe from hitting Cloud. When he picked him up and saw how pale and limp he was, his heart lurched with something he couldn’t even name.

Realizing that he couldn’t easily get Cloud out of the hole on his own without hurting him, Sephiroth reluctantly lifted him to the opening and allowed Barret and Vincent to pull him out of his arms. Once that was accomplished, he helped the two boys and the Turks get out before pulling himself up as well. As soon as he was out he walked over to where the others had lain Cloud. He stood silently, looking down at the blonde while his friends fussed over him and all three of the Turks moved around and tried to get signals on their phones. Vincent was likewise doing the same with his and Yuffie fished Cloud’s phone out of his pocket and tried as well.

Eventually Reno got a signal and he got in touch with Tseng long enough to have him send a chopper and a stretcher. Sephiroth knelt beside Cloud, not touching him but watching him steadily, making sure that his chest continued to rise and fall.

~You and Zackary…always getting yourselves hurt for the sake of others,~ The general thought. He didn’t care that Strife’s friends were watching him suspiciously, nor did he care that they were debating over whether his feelings for Cloud were winning over what they assumed was his desire for freedom. To them, it may have appeared that he was waiting for Cloud to stop breathing but in truth he was willing him to continue doing so.

~******************************~

-To be continued