001: Change.

"I don't remember him being present that day..." 

Words can hurt and indulge insecurities that fester and become unsurpassable hurdles.

Leon sighed lightly hearing her words and Aerith knit her brows into a worried expression.

"It's not your memory that is at fault. But you also shouldn't blame Cloud for that..." he answered. "Cloud is just...Not himself anymore."

"What do you mean!?" Tifa looked slightly scared by his words now and stared intently at the brown-haired man sitting with them in the community lounge of the tavern.

"I think it's about time I come clean to you two. Cloud and I...know each other. At least we used to...And I mean, before all the things at Midgar happened."

"Huh?" Both girls now exclaimed in surprise.

"But you have to promise me something. Never mention this to him, alright?"

"Why? Shouldn't he know?"

"As I said, he is currently not exactly himself right now. And what I'm about to tell you could shock you both. So you have to promise me. No matter what you hear from me, you will never act on my words. That is the only thing I ask."

Both of the women looked at him seriously and glanced at each other. With a firm expression, they nodded at each other and replied to him with the same gesture.

"Alright, where do I start? Maybe I should give my own opinion first. I had my guesses when I saw Cloud acting so distant and as if we never knew each other." he slightly scoffed at his own words when reminiscing about their meeting at the Shinra HQ.

"I remained silent and observed you guys while being not sure about how to process most of what happened. Just imagine how I felt when I saw someone I know barge into Hojo's little lab and wreak havoc there."

"Not that my mood was anything to go by after I saw Aerith being imprisoned..."

"Me?" Aerith was surprised. "You know me?"

"You could say that. After all, I was a Turk once. I know quiet a lot about you." He smiled at her and Aerith flinched a little.

"So you are..." Her question came out slowly and Tifa noticed her hesitation. That also made Tifa frown and become suspicious of Leon.

"Yes, I was one of the people that surveilled you once. But I was still a freshman back then. Only a few months out of training. Hell, after the Wutai conflict I was glad not to have to go into that mess. Well, I'm dragging."

Leon changed his sitting posture and looked around for a moment.

Barret now was getting impatient. "Come to the point already. Is he lying to us or not!?" 

Leon looked to the side and observed the hunk of a men. Barret was obviously agitated at the thought of Cloud having lied to them. And that after being through a lot of stuff together.

"He didn't lie." He looked at Tifa. "He was there Tifa. Cloud was present at that day. And I was also there."

"What? But I don't remember you..." The other looked rather suspicious at him again.

"Remember what I just said. I was a Turk. Of course, my mission was a little bit different from the two SOLDIER that were present that day."

He continued and started to explain.

"I was given the mission to find out everything that Hojo was doing in Nibelheim. As you know by now, there were enough experiments conducted in the mansion and old mako reactor. Though not everything was greenlighted by Shinra."

"So while Sepiroth talked with the mayor, Cloud took the time and went ahead to relax. My guess is that the few things still are true about his activities. I and the other SOLDIER went to do our own things."

"The other SOLDIER? There were 3?" Barret asked that now.

Leon shook his head. "No...There were only two with us at that time. Sephiroth and..." He looked intently at Aerith. "Zack..."

That got a jolt of surprise from her.

"Who is Zack?" Barret asked now.

But unlike the burly man, Tifa became serious when hearing that familiar name. Now she knew he was not just spouting nonsense.

"And you said Cloud was there too...But.", asked Tifa while frowning her little brows into trying ti figure out why she didn't remember him there?

"Cloud never made it into SOLDIER. He..." he chuckled a little and smiled softly at Tifa when recalling Cloud's embarrassment.

"...He was too embarrassed about meeting you again. Can't fault him for not wanting you find out that he only made it to an infanterist. Not even able to make it to the lowest third-class SOLDIER rank. So he hid himself under that helmet and kept mostly to himself as much as possible."

"Huh! Well, I'll be damned." Barret seemed rather interested now. He had some gut feeling that the blond brat was always trying too hard playing the overly cool attitude with everyone.

Realization dawned on Tifa as well the moment he mentioned that. "Wait...that one guy who asked about my well-being after we fell from the bridge...Now that I think about it...His voice...That was Cloud!?" There were also a few other moments where it felt weirdly familiar to her. 

Leon nodded. "I wasn't there at the time when you went up the mountain, so probably yeah. It's just that Cloud is tangling up his memories with that of his idol."

"You mean Zack?" Aerith asked now and her expression seemed extremely serious. She easily figured out the tidbits of information after hearing him out. There were still some memories of how her ex-boyfriend talked about a quirky kid after all.

"Yeah, your old boyfriend was Cloud's idol..."

Now Barret and Tifa were surprised. Only Red13 and Aerith seemed to remain calm while listening; though Aerith looked rather sad than calm at that moment

"Zack was the one you were talking about? Your first love, I mean." Tifa asked her out of curiosity now.

"Huh? Yeah....Right, we wanted to talk about this before...But now is not the time. Please continue!" Aerith said back and wanted to continue listening to Leon's words.

Leon sighed lightly. He could tell she was now eagerly trying to get more information about Zack.

"After the first dilemma where Sephiroth closed himself up in the mansion, everything went haywire. The burning of the village...I only found you guys later in the reactor when I went there together with Zangan."

"Before I could continue and check for the others the old man took Tifa and left. She had a deep wound and it needed immediate medical help. I agreed with him, lend them the helicopter we used to get up there and went on ahead alone."

Tifa seemed to fidget with her abdomen a little, close to her chest area. Presumably remembering the scar that was still there.

Leon seeing that also placed one hand on his neck where his fingers slowly traced over the scar that traveled along his whole neck.

"Not one of my greatest decisions I guess. But in retrospective, it was my only choice...I found Zack unconscious on the ground and he was not alone. There was another of Hojo's experiments about to eat him alive. So, I went ahead and tried my best to defeat the mutant before it did as mentioned. Sadly that thing was not to be trifled with and after it mutated further and went out of control it brought me some heavy injuries. while rampaging the place some more."

His rubbing at the neck intensified slightly.

"Got these as a memory to that. Still wonder how I managed to survive that day. Anyway, I still managed to somehow defeat it. Unlucky as it already was, some pipes went off after alarms started blaring in the facility and I got knocked out from metal hitting me."

With a sigh, he stopped rubbing his neck.

"Later I regained some consciousness but it was too late at the time. I guess that the alarm informed Hojo straight away and gave him room to act. With me bleeding profusely near death's door, we three unlucky souls got captured and turned into subjects. And for the next 4 years, we went under the sadistic experiments of that old bastard....." Leon clenched his palms in anger just remembering.

"So, you were missing only because you never left Nibelheim that day. And those years were stolen from you by Hojo?", Tifa commented after finding this truth out.

Tifa and Aerith seemed to be in thought at that moment. Both of them suddenly felt guilt rise in their minds and hearts, for each of them had blamed their significant other for something out of their control.

"Damn that Hojo. What a damn lunatic. The more we find out, the more disgusting that slimebag becomes..." Barret grunted.

Red13 growled. "Agreed, I hope next time we meet that scientist, we manage to end his ways."

Leon nodded. "In a sense, we were lucky to have had some value in us for his experimentations. The other two, one having already passed the SOLDIER experimentation and the other who somehow injured Sephiroth. For that guy, those two were prime examples of rare guinea pigs. I probably only became one because I outperformed a mutant rather well - all things considered while only being evaluated as a low-tier Turk. Even I think my chances that day were extremely slim to be truthful..."

Then silence remained for a short moment for everyone to digest the information.

"Well, Zack managed to regain some control over our fate after we got some help from some friends. With that, we finally managed to escape from the mansion - though we were hunted by Shinra for quite some time. Cloud was comatose through pretty much the whole journey while I was already awake but still needed to heal properly from my wounds. The mako-poisoning didn't make it any better at the time for sure."

He looked at Aerith then and took her hand softly.

"That one day was rainy... And I'm sorry..." 

Aerith looked at him and was puzzled. But then a single tear traveled down her cheeks.

"Huh?" She wiped it away. "Why do I?"

"Your knowledge may be gone, but your emotions remain...And you probably already felt that Zack had returned to the planet..." He let go of her hands.

"I'm sorry that I couldn't protect Zack. I wanted to help. He was a good friend. In the end, he even sacrificed himself for us two. That battle that day went on for a long time and I only ended up being incapacitated again..."

"Cloud on the other hand woke up a while after the fight ended. I asked him to quickly check on Zack. But after asking him I only heard Cloud's wailing cry and his sobbing later. The exhaustion overcame me and I lost consciousness there. The next thing I remember is being in the Shinra HQ...in Hojo's hands again...So at least that is as much as I can tell you about what happened. My guess is Cloud managed to escape more incoming Shinra troops. And Zack...since I feel his spirit in the lifestream, he probably didn't make it that day...That and the Bustersword being in Cloud's possession now, tells me the truth..."

The others at the side seemed to feel sorry for Aerith. Not that the more details came to light, the more sorrow came to overflow in their moods.

"Wait, you can feel him?" Aerith was sad but still asked that question.

"Yeah...Another thing that I hid most of my life. I'm a Cetra as well. Well, I'm only a halfling like you Aerith, but a Cetra nonetheless. However if we talk about it seriously, everyone on this planet has some Cetra DNA in them one way or another. It just got weaker and weaker after time and diluted itself into near extinction."

Aerith looked surprised after finding out that she was not the last. And not only her, but the others as well.

"You can imagine how I tried to keep this hidden. And at first, I managed to hide that fact rather easily. Especially since most male Cetra are unlikely to develop the same spiritual strength and abilities as females do. But after being experimented on and having been infused with so much Mako. Even my body started to adapt and showcase my heritage."

"You are the one Hojo wanted me to...."

Leon smiled wryly. "Yeah...the reproduction plan. He found out. I imagined him to dissect me the next moment that fact came to light. Hell, that asshole could also just simply extract my body fluids and inject them in you if need be. Yet he wanted to make it as "normal" as possible. In my opinion that bastard wanted to torment us more than necessary."

Red13, Tifa, and Aerith frowned. The only one that was out of the loop here was Barret but from the words he heard he could also make his assumptions that got him into the same state as the three.

"Well, it could also be because of the parasitic DNA that is now coursing through my body. And since we are at this topic. Tifa, listen well. Cloud and I got some of Jenova's cells injected into us. In Cloud's case, it is his left arm. In mine, it is my heart. Every SOLDIER candidate has this DNA in them. Especially after the G-Projekt went through their experiments with fetuses and finally became able to mass-produce SOLDIER in handpicked individuals."

He clenched his fist and concentrated some mana through it. The lifeforce inside his body seemed to pulse into action and a small aura enveloped his hand.

"It changes us permanently to harvest mako and strengthen our bodies. Yet at the same time, we start seeing things, hearing things...the foreign cells are slowly corroding us. And in Cloud's case, the mako poisoning scrambled his memories. I guess that he lost most of them after some relapse. It's a wonder that you two even met. Come to think of it, how did you even meet?"

Tifa squinted her eyes. "It's true...I found Cloud rather out of it near Sector 7's train station...But, it is curable, right!?" She asked right after with a worried look.

"I don't know...At the very least it does induce some heavy hallucinations in us but those should get less problematic as long as we keep him in the present. With you around, I think it should be fine." Leon grinned at Tifa now and that surprised her somewhat. She sure enough got the hinted message.

"Well, we all can contribute to improving his mental state. Just keep note to be vary about him if he relapses too hard. I saw Cloud getting attacked every time some key memories seemed to surface. Like names or memories that could contradict his build persona that he currently wears... But the good thing is that he seems to start recalling some of his own memories. Not sure though if it is a good thing that he is rather easily influenced when in those states of weakness."

"And about the cells...There is no turning back. At least not that I know of. However, I started to get a hang of the cells and my symptoms started to weaken and disappear. If we could get some trustworthy scientist to look at my cells, we could probably make some vaccine. But fingers crossed on that assumption."

"It's better than nothing. We saw what could happen with those guys in black robes..." Red13 commented on this now.

Tifa and Aerith looked rather downcast. Just at that moment, someone walked over to them.

It was Cloud who was gone for a while checking out the town and getting some supplies for breakfast in the morning.

"Oh, hey buddy. Got everything we needed?" Leon smiled and went straight to acting as if nothing happened.

But Cloud obviously could see Aerith avoiding his gaze and Tifa looking at him worriedly.

"Did something happen?" He asked before nodding at Leon and putting down the basket with all the ingredients and looking at Aerith.

"Oh, no. Everything is fine. I'm just a little tired, that's all." Aerith said meekly when noticing he meant her.

"Then you should get some rest.", Cloud replied nonchalantly.

"Cloud, can we talk for a moment?" Tifa asked now and stood up.

"Tifa?" Leon frowned. Didn't he ask her to keep quiet? Well, maybe it was a bad decision to tell them some truths.

"It's fine, I just want to figure something out myself. Cloud, please meet me at the balcony." Then she went upstairs.

Cloud was confused but still followed her up.

Leon sighed. "Well, whatever happens, just try to not kick in the doors. Obviously, Cloud is struggling with his mako-induced amnesia. Just know that we will still have to stop Sephiroth at the end." He also stood up then. 

Before leaving though he still said a few words to Aerith. "If you need to talk...I'm here." Placing his hand on her shoulder he went ahead to get some sleep.

Barret could only scratch his head in frustration and also went up.

Red13 just came closer to Aerith and lay down. He remained close by for the time she remained on her chair in a somewhat praying position.

Her expression looked extremely pained and sad.