Chapter Text
Weightlessness. A momentary feeling of emptiness. Cloud Strife hadn’t felt this foreign sensation since he wound up in the Lifestream, no thanks to getting shot in the chest. Didn’t he end up floating in a small body of water after that?
Cloud woke up with a startle. His movements rippled the tranquil green spring. It smelled different than the water in the church. It smelled of unrefined mako and...he had to get out! His boots reached the bottom of the spring. It was a small relief that the spring only reached his chest and an even bigger relief when he noticed his fusion sword was still holstered safely on his back. Walls of trees encircled the spring.
It was eerily silent except for the sound of the slight rustle of leaves. Absent were the other sounds of life. Cloud knew of only one such place. The Sleeping Forest. At least he didn’t have to worry about monsters here.
Standing now, Cloud took a few steps to get out when he noticed something floating nearby. Thanks to his enhanced sight he was able to identify the floating thing to be...a body?
He moved closer and oh Gaia, it was a body!
The body floated with its face down. Leaving a human body inside a mako spring could pose problems later so Cloud took it upon himself to fish it out of the spring. Grabbing it by the shirt collar, Cloud had no time to check if it was still alive, and hauled it over his shoulder in a fireman’s hold. He then jumped from the spring and gracefully landed on the ground.
He laid the cadaver on the ground face up and was shocked by a few things. One, the cadaver was a beautiful young woman and two, the cadaver was breathing! How was it even possible for someone who presumably drowned in mako to not be choking out mako? And to top it off, the black haired beauty suddenly opened her eyes.
Cloud wanted to ask if she was alright. People would normally be suffering severe mako poisoning after swimming in a mako spring for Gaia knows how long and honestly, he didn’t know what else to ask someone who he was sure was dead mere moments ago.
Before he could ask, the woman squinted at him and scoffed, “ Why does an angel look like Cloud Strife?”
The young woman fainted after asking her question to no one in particular.
Cloud Strife, the time traveler, not only felt offended for some reason, but also bewildered with many questions and with no other choice but to haul the strangely not dead woman to the nearest town if he wanted answers. Plus his heroic busybody tendencies really didn’t allow him to leave an unconscious woman alone in the Sleeping Forest. Even if it was highly likely he was probably carrying a new type of undead.
The unconscious woman was warm to the touch, alive. After laying the woman in a bed to rest, Cloud stepped out to the hallway, softly closing the door behind him and decided to call Tifa to explain things. Instead of the usual ringing sound, a feminine pre-recorded voice told him the number was not in service and suggested he get in touch with ShinRa communications support. How odd. Cloud stared down his PHS. The WRO would never use a ShinRa pre-recorded message in it’s comms.
Thinking it was because of the distance messing up the signals, Cloud headed to the inn’s front desk to use their landline. Maybe get in contact with Barret, if he was lucky? Last he heard from the gunman was that he was digging up something in Corel Valley. He rang the bell and while waiting for the innkeeper to appear, he took a glance out the window. He remembered the last time he was here the dwellings looked more indistinguishable from the snow.
Did the residents of Icicle Inn finally decide to have a snow clearing day?
Cloud turned back to the front desk when his eyes fell on the calendar hanging by the key holders. The date was very wrong. It said it was εγλ 1999, but that can't be right. The correct date was εγλ 0011. And yet the calendar wasn’t yellowed nor was it curled in the edges like old paper should.
“That can’t be right.” he murmured.
Right on queue the elderly innkeeper with today’s paper pinned under his armpit, emerged from the back room. He stood at the counter and greeted him with a service smile.
“Is that the date today?” Cloud slowly asked.
The innkeeper’s brows furrowed with slight annoyance at the odd question. “Why, yes, that’s correct, young man.”
“But that’d mean, Midgar is still standing?”
The elder shook his head, having none of Cloud’s nonsense. Deciding his full attention wasn’t needed, he sat down in his usual chair at the side and dramatically opened his newspaper. Creating a wall of paper to divide him and the weirdly dressed spiky blonde. “What are you going on about young man? What would Midgar be if not standing? I heard from my daughter that ShinRa just finished constructing a sector plate and opened one of those huge reactors.”
Cloud sucked in a breath, trying to process what he had just heard. This was before Meteorfall and even before...a lot of things. “How about Sephiroth?”
The innkeeper didn’t bother looking at him and continued to peruse his paper. “You mean General Sephiroth? Last I heard from the news is that he’s about to lead a huge operation or something in Wutai. Oh, apparently he’s already won.” He then showed Cloud the page of a picture of Sephiroth and a headline above that said, War Hero Makes Triumphant Return. Wutai Surrender Imminent!
Cloud could feel his world tilt like he was in a nightmare where everything he had done was reversed and now he had to do it all over again.
No, no, no! It wasn't possible, it was not εγλ 1999!
Cloud stepped out of the inn and dialed Barret's number. It rang but instead of the boisterous gunman answering with a yell, a younger sounding Barret answered in a reasonable volume.
Speechless, Cloud immediately hung up. His instincts told him that wasn't the Barret he knew. Cloud tried calling the rest of his friends. Everyone’s numbers were answered by the same pre-recorded message. Cid’s PHS connected to the man himself, but after mentioning his name the man cursed him for wasting his time on someone he didn’t know before hanging up.
Cloud didn’t know what just happened. He wanted to deny the facts, to find something that showed otherwise. He marched to the house with all the answers, Gast’s and Ifalna’s house. If this was really the past then that house should be able to prove it.
It was undeniable now. Everything was like how he and the others first visited, except the videotapes and the files were still all there, even the ugly as sin mug that Yuffie knocked over was still displayed above the fireplace. Judging by the layer of dust, everything remained untouched.
His suspicions confirmed, Cloud’s knees failed him.
As he slid to the ground on fours, he pounded a fist and cursed. He had saved the world and it wasn’t good enough that he was being given a do-over. Should he go kill Sephiroth? Or should he go deal with either JENOVA or Hojo first? Fuck, the hit list was simple enough, but Cloud had no idea how to get to any one of those at the current time. Finally having calmed down with a somewhat clear goal, Cloud made his way back to the inn.
“What the hell am I doing here?” So said the reincarnated heroine of this story as she took in the homey rustic interiors. She was sitting atop an old but well-maintained bed. Thanks to her summer appropriate attire she still felt a chill despite the strong blaze in the fireplace. Wrapping the woolen quilt around her shoulders, the young woman stood by the fireplace and looked out the window next to it. It was a winter wonderland outside, just like what you'd imagine the inside of a snow globe with the cabins would look like. Snow as far as the eye can see, covering everything in a thick coat of white. The only thing differentiating the snow mounds and the buildings were the smoke coming from the roofs and the dim lights pouring out from the dwellings' windows. It would seem that night is about to fall given the remaining daylight and the streetlamps that just switched on. For some reason, this place gave her a sense of deja vu. Like she has somehow seen this exact scene from a higher perspective and in a less than HD resolution?
The door to her room swung open and with it entered an AVALANCHE of answers.
From the reflection in the window, she saw mako green eyes warily observing her. A gloved hand twitching by his side, no doubt a knee jerk reaction to reach for the hilt of the big ass sword peeking out behind his blonde spiky hair. She had already felt his presence a few moments ago, but she wasn’t sure who it was exactly until now. Likewise, he must have felt something similar from her to be wary of an unarmed woman. She turned to face the young swordsman. Clutching the quilt to look as non-threatening as possible and said.
“Please tell me we're not in Icicle Inn.”
“This is Icicle Inn.” He replied in a matter of factly manner.
“Ah, fuck.” She uttered louder than she intended as she flopped into the couch by the fire.
Cloud could feel something different as he stepped inside the inn. There was a peculiar presence lingering above him. Exactly in the room where he left the young woman a few hours ago. Uttering a curse at a possible intruder, he hastily made his way to the room and swung the door open without even so much as a knock. Cloud quickly scanned the room for another person but only found one figure standing by the window next to the fireplace huddled in the inn’s bed cover. No sign of the woman in the bed, so it must be her by the window. Her back was facing him so he wasn’t sure.
Cloud was still a bit on edge. He had just come to terms with the fact that he may have travelled back into the past and had a hit list to get on with to save the world. As if adding more reasons to rattle his sanity, now he could feel something he couldn’t quite decide whether it was something mystical or mad sciency from the woman he had fished out of the mako spring.
She reeked of mako for sure but he couldn’t feel anything like he felt from other mako experiments like him, so she probably just needed a shower. No J-cells or S-cells or whatever cells he had inside him were acting up. She's secretly not a SOLDIER, check. Which left her to be probably something mystical but Cloud also couldn’t feel the calming presence that Aerith’s planet connection aura usually brought. It didn’t make sense. There was definitely 'something' there that allowed him to detect her presence.
Could his being a time traveler be related to this detecting skill? Why was it her specifically? Was she also a time traveler?
The young woman then turned to him with a frown. He was momentarily stunned by her exotic Wutain features that he almost missed what she said.
“Please tell me we’re not in Icicle Inn.” Her weary ochre gaze was hoping he’d say something different.
“This is Icicle Inn.” He said matter of factly and observed how she didn't seem surprised.
Cloud could see she had a look behind her eyes that he usually found in knowledgeable elders.
He heard her groan a curse as she flopped into the couch by the fire.
The young woman didn’t seem to mind that he drew near her as she continued to mumble while she massaged her temple.
“Like who the fuck wants that much death, drama and destruction? Those three Ds together should be illegal!”
Cloud couldn’t help but think about that overheard statement. He wasn’t sure about the drama, but there was a lot of death and destruction in the near future. It occurred to him that the woman may also know about what’s to come. Without thinking he grasped her shoulder, “Are you from the future too?”
The young woman patted his hand and sighed.
“I'm Athena, in any other circumstance I'd be thrilled to meet you but at the moment let's just say I'm equal parts relieved and horrified to meet you Cloud Strife of Edge.”
"How?" Cloud said. His utter shock rendering him unable to articulate the question in more than one word.
"How do I know you and that you're from the future?" She paused for dramatic effect and ran a hand through her chin length ebony hair. "Because I'm from another world and in that world, I've seen your story Cloud Strife."
A tense silence passed until Athena indolently leaned her back on the couch.
"So, know how we got here, Cloudy?" Cloud ignored the nickname for now. Stepping away from her to hover by the fire. Cloud crossed his arms in contemplation. Unsure about the woman’s claims. If she really knew the future like he did then he may need her help from here.
"I woke up in a mako spring in the Sleeping Forest. You were also in the spring, so I also…"
"Stop right there.” She interrupted with a wave of her hand. “I can figure out that you found me alive and brought me to the nearest town which is here, Icicle Inn." She tilted her head asking for confirmation. Cloud nods.
"Thanks, by the way." She smiled and gestured for him to take the seat next to her. Cloud shakes his head and remains standing by the fireplace.
"The last thing you remember before waking up here. What was it?"
"I was asked to investigate a weird materia that was causing its surroundings to act strange."
Athena whistles, "How mysterious, tell me more." She propped up her legs across the couch, ready for a long story.
Cloud scrunched his brows. Eyes flitting left and right. "I don't remember what happened." He looked to be on the verge of a panic attack.
Athena cleared her throat. "Well, as they say the past is just, you know, the past. So…" She said trying to shove away the awkward tension and shelving a possibly important topic for another day.
"Do you know what year it is?"
"It's εγλ 1999."
Athena threw her head back and groaned.
"Ugh shit, I'm not that much of a fangirl to know by date. How about the current events at this time?"
Cloud pushed down his panic of having another lost memories episode and recited what he found earlier. "The house where we...the files and recording about Professor Gast are there, untouched. I found out from the innkeeper that the war with Wutai is almost at a close. Sephiroth..." Cloud stammered as he mentioned his name then looked at her with urgency.
"Athena, we have to kill Sephiroth!"
Cloud saw her brows furrow at his outburst then he heard Athena click her tongue in disappointment.
"This early in the game, the Calamity's Son should be the very least of your concern, Cloudy."
Athena stretched her limbs like a cat then jumped out of the couch, leaving the quilt behind. Wearing only a severely wrinkled summer dress, she stood barefoot by the fire next to Cloud. It was suddenly warmer in the room as if the intensity of the fire increased.
“JENOVA, Hojo, and ShinRa.” She counted with a finger each and raised it up for Cloud to see. Cloud threw her a skeptic look. “This is the correct sorting of our problems according to the threat level. JENOVA being the highest threat.”
Cloud narrowed his eyes. “Sephiroth should be right there next to JENOVA. She could literally use him to destroy the planet!”
Athena was unimpressed with Cloud’s point. “In your time, he was too far gone. Right?” She calmly inquired.
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that Sephiroth’s not the problem, what made his mind break is.” Athena emphasized by waving her fingers before putting them down. “In the Nibelheim reactor,” Cloud shuddered at the mention of his razed hometown. “JENOVA took advantage of his moment of weakness.”
Athena reached out to pat his shoulder. “Lucky for you, Cloudy, I know what happened or what will happen if we keep dawdling here in winter wonderland. Trust me.”
Cloud met her unwavering ochre eyes, seeing only cunning determination in them. He couldn’t help but be jealous of the confidence oozing out of the mysterious woman. Cloud hated to admit feeling relieved to not be alone in this strange world that’s both his and not his. However, there was also something else behind her knowing smile, he could feel it with his sixth sense for danger. Athena had an unknown power that’s making him feel like walking on tenterhooks.
Instinctively, he knew that Athena could overpower him if she wanted to. Oddly, he also knew that she wouldn’t also harm him.
“I’ll trust you this time.” Cloud reluctantly said, shoulders finally not as tense as when he first appeared in the room. “If this doesn’t work out, I’m working on my kill list.”
Athena threw her head back and let out a laugh before smirking. “Don’t worry, Cloudy, it won’t come to that.”