Chapter Text
Sometimes, Cloud got lulled into a false sense of security in a new dimension.
He had to make fairly quick assessments of any given world if he wanted to be able to rest, or search out food, or turn and run as fast as he fucking could to avoid spending a few hours in agony. Sometimes his assessments were wrong. It was a sad fact of being a fallible human man—he was going to be wrong sometimes.
The current world, for instance, hadn’t thrown anything at all at him for nearly four hours and he’d relaxed completely. Then, out of nowhere: the Commanders and the General in one cohesive unit, nearly killing him as he was caught completely off guard. The fact that all three had been off their collective rockers was a new one. He wondered how they managed to keep a united front while batshit insane.
They beat him to hell and back, but he’d managed to turn the tables and kick their asses into the dirt just before the burning started. He might have grumbled a little about it happening now as opposed to before he’d been smacked hither and yon by the triumvirate of crazy.
Or a lot. He may have grumbled a lot.
He slid into the nothing, and slid back out into a new world. His abdominal muscles spasmed immediately, the nausea impossible to suppress when there was so much blood in his stomach. And lungs. And abdominal cavity. He choked and coughed, splattering a mix of blood and stomach acid down the front of his shirt. “Gaia fuck,” he wheezed, wiping his mouth with the back of one hand.
A quiet noise from a few yards away caught his attention. He looked up and then tossed his head back with a childish groan. “Not you again,” he complained to no one in particular. The least the universe could do was not give him the same problem twice in a row. Why couldn’t it have been evil AVALANCHE? He would have preferred running like hell from them rather than another sword fight—especially when he was still massively bloodied up. Shit.
“I—what?” said Commander Rhapsodos, who was standing protectively in front of... both Sephiroth and Commander Hewley? Huh. And when Cloud looked a little closer, squinting through his slightly hazy vision, he realized something way weirder: Angeal was holding a tiny, unconscious Cloud in his arms.
“Huh,” said Cloud, coughing again. Black-speckled blood dripped to the floor, but that was their problem. “Is that…? What are you doing?”
“What are... you... doing?” Rhapsodos countered in a stumbling voice, as if he wanted a better answer but was too caught off guard to come up with anything other than an elementary-school ‘no, you.’
Cloud glanced at the coating of red on his glove and down the front of his brutalized shirt. “Uh, bleeding internally, I think.” He realized his sword was still out, scorched and covered in blood. “Hold on. Before this goes any further, have any of you done a genocide and/or are planning on doing a genocide?”
The three SOLDIERs stared at him in absolute, uncomprehending bafflement. Tiny Cloud slept on, cradled protectively in Commander Hewley’s arms, which was most likely a good sign. Unless they kidnapped him. That would be bad. Though, the kid did have... wait a fucking second, the kid had Ribbon on his arm?
You know what, never mind. That was a dangerously time-travel train of thought and it would be dealt with later, if ever.
“We have not, are not, and will never commit genocide?” Commander Hewley finally offered, firm but bewildered.
“Fantastic.” Cloud glanced around long enough to identify the beach house in Costa Del Sol that Calamity Zack’s Mandatory Vacation Club had occupied. Sure why not. At least he was somewhere he knew where everything was. “Love to hear that. I’m borrowing your sink.”
“Uh—”
He didn’t actually wait for them to answer, staggering into the kitchen and over to the sink, where he leaned his hip hard into the counter so he wouldn’t fall over. He deftly flipped Tsurugi and set it on the counter, then unbuckled and shrugged off his harness. They were whispering furiously in the other room. Someone went upstairs as he peeled his shirts off, ‘borrowed’ a dishtowel, and started wiping enough of the blood away to assess his torso.
It was fucked. But he could manage before he keeled over and died.
Someone inhaled sharply behind him. He looked over his shoulder, and Commander Rhapsodos was there, Rapier out in a defensive position. The sword dropped even as he watched, tip dipping down as the good Commander witnessed wounds very clearly inflicted by his own weapon. Well, his own from another dimension, but he didn’t know that yet.
Cloud activated his (long, long since) mastered Cure and sealed the one the Commander was staring at—a huge cauterized slash that had narrowly avoided severing his spine—first. Without the time, tools, and flexibility to debride the dead skin first, the healing itched like hell. If he’d had more energy to spare, he would have been squirming in place.
“What, Rhapsodos?” he asked, twisting one arm behind his back to find the exit wound Masamune had left when she’d impaled his gut. The angle was sharp—he found it just below his shoulder blades, knuckles immediately slick with blood as they skated over the tear. “You gonna stare or are you gonna attack me?” He fervently hoped attacking wasn’t in the books. He hated dying and the odds of him winning a second three-to-one in a row were virtually zero.
“I...”
Green flashed as Cloud carefully (carefully) sealed up the impalement wound. One of his knees buckled hard into the cabinet, but that was exactly why he’d braced his hip in the first place, so that was fine. “If you’re just gonna stare at my naked torso, I should tell you I’m married.”
That seemed to jar Rhapsodos enough to re-focus. “Are you...Zack?” he asked, which was so startling that a surprised laugh burst from Cloud, making pain flare all over his body.
“Ow, fuck,” he said, bracing a hand across the wound from Hewley’s Buster sword that had nearly disembowled him. He spat a mouthful of blood into the sink and cast an incredulous look over his shoulder as Rhapsodos finally approached, heels clicking in a familiar staccato over the tile “Am I Zack? Definitely not. The hell gave you that idea?”
Whatever vague, cautious curiosity had been on the Commander’s face vanished with his answer, hardening into a suspicious mask. “Then who are you?” he asked, a steely edge to his voice.
“Cloud Strife, interdimensional punching bag extraordinaire,” Cloud answered, sealing up the wound over his gut. The dish towel was completely soaked through with crimson. He rinsed it and wrung it out with shaky hands.
Poor Rhapsodos immediately lost his steely determination to bewilderment. “Cloud...interdimensional...what?”
“You seem to know a Cloud, if that kid was who I think he was. I’m a different Cloud. From another dimension.” Did he enjoy fucking with them sometimes? Yes. He eyed the man, cleaning another, thankfully shallow, stab wound in his pectoral muscle. This one was cauterized, courtesy of Rapier, but it didn’t take much to scrub the dead bits off. The other Rhapsodos had said something about ‘ burning out his heart.’ Drama queens, all of them. “Don’t think about it too hard,” he advised.
But the Commander didn’t seem to have heard him. His eyes were on the wound Cloud promptly closed, wide with horrified recognition. “That...that looks like my…”
“Yep,” Cloud agreed. Then he startled, barely biting back a reflexive Thundaga as Rhapsodos snatched the towel up and started clearing the blood away in efficient strokes. “Hey, woah—” Cloud started.
“Shut up,” Rhapsodos snapped, grabbing one of Cloud’s arms and moving it out of the way. His breath became shallow as more and more of Cloud’s skin was revealed. It was the scars, Cloud realized. He was looking at the scars— recognizing the scars. And then recognizing some of the fresh wounds from Masamune, Rapier, and the Buster.
“Fuck,” he said, standing at Cloud’s back now as he mopped up what Cloud couldn’t reach. “You...where did you get these?”
“I don’t have enough blood left to justify answering obvious questions.” His other knee chose that moment to buckle. His hands slammed onto the counter. Well, shit. Time’s up, he thought, and summoned every last bit of his mana into a final, body-wide Cura. Rhapsodos made a noise Cloud couldn’t quite identify because he was too busy clinging to consciousness by a thread.
Despite all his best efforts, he lost muscle tone anyway and slid down the cabinets. He would have landed in an ungraceful heap had the Commander not caught him. How generous, he thought hazily as he was manhandled over to a kitchen chair. A separate pair of hands semi-gently slapped his face. He managed to crack his eyes open and direct a “mmhg?” at the vaguely Hewley-shaped blur. His vision refused to focus as it greyed around the edges. Oops.
Cloud was pretty sure they were talking to him. Or maybe over him. He probably wasn’t about to black out entirely, but higher cognitive function was out of the question while his enhanced healing did its job. If they murdered him in that time, ah, whatever. He just hoped they didn’t have the resources on hand to properly restrain him, or he would be really annoyed when he came to.
Someone was still clearing away the blood. Then, to his vague surprise, they started casting Cures. An indeterminate amount of time later something warm was pressed into his chest, just over his oldest Masamune scar. It burst, suffusing him with heat and energy, and he roused back into full consciousness.
“You probably shouldn’t heal someone when they defy the laws of physics and pop up in your living room,” he said, like an idiot. Back to full functionality, if not full health, he quickly took in the kitchen. Hewley was behind him, holding him upright in the chair. Rhapsodos was leaning against the table, watching him shrewdly. And Sephiroth was now present but standing the farthest away, an oddly haunted and cornered look to his eye.
Actually, Sephiroth looked like absolute shit, now that Cloud was paying attention. Huh.
“Probably not,” Hewley agreed mildly, and now the hands on his shoulders were meant for restraint rather than support. That was fine, though. As long as no one started stabbing, Cloud didn’t want to move anyway.
“Well, as long as we’re all clear on that,” Cloud said as he took a moment to assess himself. His legs were still banged up, but that was fine for now. The life-threatening wounds on his torso were all closed, and his skin had been completely cleaned for some reason. His ribs had gone from feeling broken to feeling bruised. One ankle felt like it had a minor break, but since he wasn’t standing he didn’t worry about it too much. He was as fine as he was going to get, and that meant moving on to the second most pressing task.
So he sighed, combing his bloodied bangs away from his face, and said, “alright, questions? I know you have questions. Everyone always has questions.”
Sephiroth blinked in surprise. Rhapsodos immediately repeated himself from earlier: “Where did you get those scars?”
Cloud couldn’t resist rolling his eyes a little. Seriously, there was no way he didn’t already know the answer. “Masamune, mostly, but also Rapier and the Buster, Tifa’s fists, Conformer, Venus Gospel, little bit of Death Penalty sprinkled in there for flavor…” he counted them off on his fingers as he spoke. “A lot of places. But you already knew that. You just don’t know how.” He cocked a brow. “I told you, but for the sake of Hewley and Sephiroth, I’m Cloud Strife from a different dimension.”
“Cloud Strife?” Genesis repeated, as Sephiroth and Hewley both said “different dimension?”
“Listen, I really can’t explain much better than that. I’ve been bouncing around dimensions for uh…” he frowned and scratched his jaw. “Not sure, actually. Upwards of a year or two, maybe? So, different dimensions, yes they exist, there are a lot of them, and I will be hurled back into the next one against my will in roughly seven hours.”
Hewley spoke. “How...how long have you had these scars?”
Cloud twisted around to shoot him a weird look, which he allowed. “Uh...got impaled—” they all flinched at that, even Sephiroth, which was interesting— “by Masamune at sixteen the first time. Everything else kinda piled up after that.”
The most incredible set of expressions crossed the faces of the SOLDIERs as Cloud watched in absolute fascination. It was like they sort of wanted to be relieved, and then they thought about what he said and were horrified, but wanted to be relieved by something else and couldn’t quite figure out how to feel. It was one of the most entertaining things Cloud had witnessed since evil AVALANCHE had spotted him.
Evil AVALANCHE. EVILANCHE? Food for thought.
He decided to prod them, since they seemed to be a little stuck. “Why do you care?”
Genesis passed a hand over his eyes. “Wait. Just to be clear, you have had nothing to do with Sephiroth’s nightmares, correct?”
“Oooh, is that why he looks like shit?” Cloud asked, which caused the three SOLDIERs to turn wide eyes on him. He clicked his tongue. “Don’t give me that look, I probably know Sephiroth the best out of everyone in this room, including Sephiroth. But no, obviously I wasn’t involved in his nightmares considering I wasn’t even in this dimension until five minutes ago.” You idiot went unsaid.
Sephiroth was looking at him with mixed confusion and hope. “Perhaps you can give us answers, then? I have been dreaming about...a grown version of Cloud killing me, over and over again. And the child has your sword, and your Ribbon. Whatever happened, did it simply happen later for you?”
Cloud made a face. Of course his initial suspicion had to be correct. Fucking time-travel. The real question was why the kid was...a kid. Or was he a kid? “Okay, weird question, but does your Cloud have a disturbing level of skill and knowledge about...well, everything?”
They exchanged a glance. “The first time I laid eyes on him he summoned Phoenix and burned down the ShinRa mansion in Nibelheim,” Genesis offered.
Cloud let his head thunk against the chair’s back and groaned, startling Hewley. “Fuuuuuck, yeah, no. That Cloud is from the future. Not sure why he’s tiny, because he should definitely be at least twenty-three to have Tsurugi, but…”
“That’s ridiculous,” Hewley said automatically, but he sounded uneasy.
“More ridiculous than dimensional travel?” He arched his brows at the man, still slouched against the back of the chair. “Okay, let me take a swing, then: Sephiroth’s dreams include a reactor. He’s talking like a crazy bastard when he’s stabbed by a faceless trooper. He stabs the trooper, trooper flings him into the mako using his own sword.”
He sat up to look, and the man in question had gone very, very pale. Well, good. Maybe he would think twice before genociding the world. “And possibly a second memory: he’s come back from the dead, stabs Cloud a few times, Cloud gets back up and kicks his ass using Omnislash.” He spread his hands, watching with interest as Genesis actually got up and went to Sephiroth’s side. The silver-haired man looked dangerously hazy—enough that Cloud felt a little bad for his delivery.
But only a little.
“I lived those memories,” he continued, tapping his temple. “Kid lived those memories, I would guess, unless there’s some other fuckery afoot. Considering you said he has my sword and Ribbon though, I doubt it.” He paused for a second, looking at Genesis thoughtfully. "Rhapsodos, were you recognizing Rapier's delicate touch or my scars?"
"Both," he said, face unreadable. One of his fists was clenched. "You share your oldest scars with the...smaller Cloud.”
Cloud pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Time-travel, came back with his gear, probably involuntary...hmm. Why would he have been small-ified...? He should be preteen even if his body got mashed into—“
Sephiroth made a noise, marched over to the sink that was still stained red with Cloud’s blood, and promptly threw up. Cloud’s eyebrows shot into his hairline. Hewley let go of him and went over to his friend, while Rhapsodos hovered on his other side, holding his ridiculous silver hair back. “I really,” Sephiroth choked out, “I really did those things. They’re real. I did them.” He dry heaved. Angeal smoothed a hand down his back.
Cloud felt his eyes roll so far back in his head that it nearly hurt. “Shiva,” he said, dragging a hand down his eyes. That was a mistake—he forgot his cheekbone was fractured and it hurt like a bitch. He groaned, half in pain and half in exasperation. “Why are you always so dramatic? No, moron, you didn’t do those things any more than I did them.”
Angeal and Genesis both shot Cloud glares, but Sephiroth just turned an ear in his direction and went still. Oh fine, Cloud thought, I guess I have to do this. “I have met countless versions of you and they’ve given me everything from yet another stab wound to uncomfortably passionate kisses—yes that really happened, don’t ask.” The latter part was directed to the startled and appalled look that all three of them sent him, probably because their first encounter with a Cloud had been a tiny kid one.
Still, Sephiroth was actually focusing on him—that was good. So he continued: “Let me tell you, every single one of them made their own choices. Nothing is inevitable. Gaia, look, there’s even been worlds where Cloud was the one who did ‘those things,’ and I would be the universe’s biggest moron if I wasted my time feeling guilty about that. They’re not me. He’s not you. Got it?”
“But...Cloud blamed me for it. He...he hates me,” Sephiroth said, oddly vulnerable. This time, Cloud felt an outright pang of pity for the guy. He must have felt as shit as he looked.
Cloud made a face at him anyway. “What, you think he’s some kind of logical paragon? Of course he hates you. I hated you when I started bouncing around. I tried to kill every single version of you I saw because I was angry and grieving the fact that I’d been stolen from my family and I blamed you.”
Genesis and Angeal shifted into more protective stances by Sephiroth’s side. Cloud rolled his eyes at them. “Not any more, obviously. You should be impressed, considering I was halfway to death thirty seconds ago because the last world had all three of you as insane megalomaniacs to fend off.”
He got three wide-eyed looks in response and couldn’t resist the smirk that tugged at his lips. “Yeah, see? You gonna start hating them too, Sephiroth? Because believe me, they are just as capable of terrible things as you and I.”
“No,” Sephiroth said reflexively. “Of course not.”
“You gonna blame Cloud, then? He could go off the deep end too. In fact, knowing me, he’s probably been an absolute dick to you on purpose. And he doesn’t actually have the lack of age to blame for it, remember?”
“No! No, I—he’s...I couldn’t. Even if he...looked like you. I saw why he…”
Cloud clapped his hands. “Great! No guilt, get over yourself, let’s move on.”
Angeal spoke as Genesis sort of gently shoved a very lost-looking Sephiroth over to a chair and made him sit. “Why would Cloud... not tell us he’s older than he looks?”
Cloud cocked his head thoughtfully, blowing his bangs out of his eyes. “Eh, dunno. Would you have believed him?”
“I—eventually,” Angeal said, and meant it. “He really, really doesn’t act like a kid, now that I have more context.”
“He was genuinely terrified of us as SOLDIERs,” Genesis offered, standing behind Sephiroth with hands on his shoulders, grounding him.
“Ah!” Cloud snapped his fingers, enlightened. “Yeah, you said you saw him burning down the mansion? He blew up the reactor too, didn’t he.”
“Yes.”
“Can’t guarantee this is why, obviously, but...he probably thought you would hand him over to the Turks, or Science, or kill him outright if you knew he wasn’t a kid. I mean, if you saw me blowing that hellhole to the Promise Land, you wouldn’t have done...whatever you did to get him here, would you?”
Genesis grimaced. “I would have fought you.”
“And lost,” Cloud agreed, ignoring the offended glare he got in response. Tiny Cloud totally would have won that fight and Genesis just had to deal with that fact. “So, obviously, he isn’t going to tell you now when you’ve got him pinned. He’s gonna wait, and escape, and go blow shit up because you fatally underestimate him.”
“I—” Angeal put a hand to his head. “This is...a lot to process.”
“It sure is,” Cloud agreed. “But I’m anemic, tired, and I’ve got six-ish more hours before I go poof, so why don’t you all...I dunno, go do some cathartic shit while I take a nap and raid your fridge?”
“Just inviting yourself to that, are you?” Genesis asked dryly.
Cloud shrugged. “When you’re cursed like I am you take what you can when you can.” He stood and stretched a little, feeling his fresh scars tug unpleasantly. “Oof,” he said, shamelessly ambling over to the fridge and starting to rummage around. Oh, leftovers! He pulled out a container and opened it, inhaling deeply. Angeal’s food was always amazing, even reheated.
When he turned around to find a fork and eat it cold, too impatient to wait, all three of them were still there, staring. “Alright, what?” he asked with a sigh.
“You are a very strange man,” Sephiroth said at length, looking less hazy and more bewildered. “You just said counterparts of ours nearly killed you and now you’re salivating over Angeal’s leftovers?”
Cloud blinked at him slowly. “What’s your point.”
“...nevermind.”