potato_powerhouse | For quiet_storm. Continuing from TFLN

In another dimension Cloud tilts his head, watching his roommate curiously. Aerith rests her hand gently on Shoshosu's back.

"The Jenova virus can sense someone's desires. It can show you what you wish to see, changing the past again and again. The original Cloud's memories will never return to the Lifestream. Whether they were destroyed when his still-living body was submerged in dead mako, or they survived only for Jenova to twist them beyond recognition, we who are part of the Lifestream will never know. If the virus touches one of us then it touches us all."

Aerith pulled back enough to seem as if she was looking her guest in the eyes. "But maybe... just maybe... someone attuned to Hydaelyn instead can see past Jenova's lies."

Shoshosu gasps, eyes bright at Aerith's statement. "Yes! Yes! That is what I want to try. Since I've never dealt with Jenova...maybe Shoshosu can, if you can help me find the way?"

She's practically bouncing, burning with the desire to help. To not fail Cloud...and now the kindly woman she's speaking with now.

Aerith's little laugh was one of simple delight. "We of the Lifestream cannot see through this darkness. If your heart can, then it alone can show you the way."

She bent down and touched a nonexistent whisper of a kiss to their guest's forehead. "You have our blessing, Sacred Life of Hydaelyn. Just remember, whether or not you find what you're looking for, the only thing that matters is that you chose to seek it out."

The white light faded from around Shoshosu, glowing invisibly inside her instead. Cloud blinked at her in concern.

For now, especially because she can feel Cloud's concern in waves, and she really needs a moment to collect herself after that, Shoshosu comes back to reality. Her eyes opens wide, and she blinks up at Cloud before giving him a bright smile and kissing him on his chin.

"It's okay, Cloud. I was trying...and I got the Lifestream and Aerith...say that looking into it by themselves is very dark because of what Jenova did...but I'm...going to try to look because I might be able to cut through the lies..."

She murmurs this, sounding distant...still half in the experience of communicating with the Lifestream, half in the waking world. "They...they'll help me...help you."

"Aerith talked to you?" The thought put a calm little smile on Cloud's face. "She's never been much for subtlety."

A little nod and a pleased hum at Cloud's smile...and her eyes slowly drift, more out of focus that their usual pupil less form usually seems. "Mm. She came when me and the Lifestream had a communication problem...I didn't know how to find you in the sea. So she came...she was really nice."

"You were looking for me inside the Lifestream?" That would be a LOT of lives to sift through. It's lucky the Shoshosu was able to find Aerith so she didn't have to go searching by herself.

"I'm not in there, though. I'm still alive."

"But...you are connected..." All this made sense while she was talking to the damned thing. "It asked, "which of us is the life of Cloud?' I didn't know how to answer, and so Aerith came. Well, after I mentioned she knew you."

She sighs, resting her head against his shoulder. "The Echo allows two souls to understand each other, a couple of dozen souls...in an entity that could be called divine? I can't completely get it. Both of them called me a Sacred Life...it was a new one for me."

Cloud shrugs, yet again. "Well, I was made out of Lifestream and I have no idea. It doesn't surprise me that you don't understand it."

He rests his hand against the back of head. "I wonder if everybody is a sacred life in Lifestream language. I've seen a few bits of writing that the Ancients left behind, but I've never heard anyone speak it. I don't even know what it sounds like. Or even if I could hear it at all. When we were at the Temple of the Ancients, Aerith could hear the voices but no one else could."

"It...sounded like music at first. And then they seemed to sing everything to me. A bunch of voices in one. Makes sense really, yes?" Her ears twitch a little as she thinks some more. "The Mako you were in was...dead Mako, which when I try again gives me something to consider...but! Long story short! I am more sure than ever that I'll get some kind answer for Cloud!"

In the end, that's one of the most important things. "I know you were worried...sorry about that. Sorry Shoshosu came back before she got to your past. I can try again!"

"Don't be sorry," he patted her back. "I really don't want you to hurt yourself or anything like that."

Music, dead Mako? Well, that didn't make sense either, but Cloud was used to that by now. "... But I am still curious."

She nods, humming softly as she takes a moment to gather her thoughts. "It...might be more than a little tiring. But I also wanna strike while the iron is hot... let me see." She leans up again to press her forehead against his. Slowly...to Cloud it may simply seem like she's freezing up, tense, hiding from creature that can only see movement.

To her, her body is yanked around, tossed like she once was a long while back...until she finds herself simply in a lab, floating above everything, watching and hearing. A sinister man with glasses, computers with stuff she can't read flashing across it...and two men, floating in tubes. That strange stuff must be the Mako...now that she thinks on it, it all does seem a little off to her... Hmm...

The lights turn on and off. People come and go. Computers click away and go dormant. Every so often, the tubes are drained so tissue samples can be collected from the specimens. Years go by. One of the tubes doesn't get drained anymore, the contents forgotten. More years go by.

Then everything changes in a shriek of shattering glass, fluid pouring everywhere, and the touch of a human being. Gravity shifts and turns, all the scenery starts changing wildly and keeps changing at breakneck speed. Months go by. A thudding feeling begins, faint and slow at first, from inside. More months go by. The first tiny puff of air flows in from the outside, then back out again. The air is as harsh as the bright light that appears and disappears, as rough as the hard jabbing surfaces that press back when gravity pulls down. More months go by.

It is pieces itself together as she watches. There's a lot of sensory information when the glass shatters. She goes from watching to...feeling it. But the information is coming to her.

Should she keep watching. Seeing it as Cloud did, and then from the outside...

Slowly she begins to pull out. She can't speak with anybody like this. It's like watching a play. One she can move about and see different angles on, but she can't do anything (No matter how much a certain genius inventor tells her about seeing her).

"Tube not drained, ignored...but why not throw you out if you died and had no use? Sensation when you were freed...but why did your heart wait to beat?"

It just seems...off. Dammit.. the Echo doesn't work on the written word...

Invisible wisps of Lifestream, soft and green, swirled around in the air. The energy was Aerith's and someone else's intermingling and sinking in. Then in a burst of light, everything started happening at the right speed.

The newborn soul instinctively crawled its way to its source. Mother, usually, but this time the strands of life were pulling away from the broken body of a dark-haired man. There was blood, and water, and being held against the source's chest. Then the source was no more, lifeless. The soul was utterly alone, abandoned, all hope of growing in the nourishing presence of love and comfort was gone. The new life's first sound was a scream, crying out to the confusing, empty, and painful world it had been thrust into, the one it had no hope of surviving. Birth and death with nothing but despair in between.

Oh...Oh no...

Now she really has pulled out, pulled away and returned to herself and the waking world with Cloud that exists with her now.

She pulls away from him...and he can probably see her trying to quicken her pace back to reality. It doesn't make sense though. Or maybe it does. Could Aerith have been there in that form? But Cloud implied he knew her, so she shouldn't have...been exalted.

She looks up at Cloud, little tears in her eyes. "I...don't know. I don't know how to interpret what...I know what it is, but I don't know."

Now Cloud really was worried. "It's okay, you don't have to know. You don't have to tell me anything, either. Sho... It's okay."

He reached out to invite her back into an embrace but made no attempt to pull her in. "The past doesn't change, right? And whatever you saw doesn't make a difference, I'm still the same me. It was over long ago. You don't have to be sad."

Sho practically launches herself back into Cloud's embrace, wrapping every limb around him. And for a while, she just holds him, burying her face against his chest and breathing in his scent.

She shakes her head. "Even...even so...the whole thing...just now was real...to me." Tightening her grip, and another shake of her head. "I...give Shoshosu a moment. Sorry."

"It's okay," he says again, softly. The heart that had forgotten how to beat years ago was going strong and steady now, thrumming in Cloud's chest, against her face. Lungs that had shied away at the first tiny taste of air were filling and emptying with the casual ease they were meant to have. Life, warm and vital, pulsed through him in triumphant defiance of all the forces that had tried to crush it into oblivion. "There's nothing to be sorry about."

"...do you feel loved?" It's the most she can come up with, as she cuddles into him and finally gets her mind and her own heart to stop racing. To cool down and try to think about everything she's witnessed.

She nuzzles against him, kissing his chest. "Because Shoshosu loves you. The you that is now. Very much. You know that, right? Even if my arms aren't long enough to wrap around you. Or I have to pull you to me to give you kisses. Shoshosu loves you so much."

It's really not something Cloud thinks about much, but he's pretty much come to terms with the fact that other people love him. A lot of other people. He doesn't understand, but that doesn't stop it from being true.

He hugs her a little tighter, a tiny smile forming on his face again. "Yeah. I do." If Cloud really does have a soul then maybe he's actually worthy of love after all, because that would mean he is capable of loving someone else in return.

Then again, with how upset Shoshosu seems to be, she might have just found out he didn't have a soul after all. That would explain a lot, like the Lifestream spitting him back out every time he ended up dunked in it or dissolving into it. All poison, no life.

"Good." She's glad that at least has gotten through to him.

So Shoshosu finally calms down, and wiggles back up so they can look at each other without having to separate too much. "I was watching, but it was also still a very, very real thing to experience. Shoshosu could feel Cloud's emotions, see things as he saw them...and...when you came to life over your friend's body...It was so painful I had to run...come back to now and hold you."

"Came to life?" The words felt odd in Cloud's mouth. "But... how?"

Those emotions must have been really unpleasant to make Shoshosu cry, but Cloud didn't remember them. It was all like a strange story that had been told to him by someone else. Unless she meant Aerith's body? Cloud remembered that one all too well, but was he really not alive before then?

"You...you were right. Really, Shoshosu hoped it would be the other way... Your body...it stopped, or so it seems inside the tank. I can't tell you why. Nobody said why, or why they still kept you in there. Maybe because you could just...start back up."

Shoshosu held onto him, trying to find her own words. "I was only outside of you for a bit, then I saw things how you would have. And...the tank you were in broke, I assume your friend...black hair, bright eyes...and a scar on his cheek...broke you out. Time passed differently, at least for you...it was only a little later, your heart beat. Later still, you could breath...and then in the rain, a new soul formed from the Lifestream...and went into you...You crawled to your friend who was dying, bloody and broken... 'You are my legacy'."

She looks up, tears starting to build up again. "I'm sorry...that on top of being born, you saw that...even if you don't remember it." And there she goes, lifting up her borrowed shirt to wipe off her face. "It's really...I don't know if what I saw is how things work. But that's what I saw."

That was Zack alright. Cloud had seen a picture, he didn't have to rely on his own memories or anyone else's to know who he was. Zack, dying. Blood, and rain, and the Lifestream. Tears, too, stinging agony welling up, just like the ones spilling from Shoshosu's eyes.

"You are my living legacy..." That's how it went. Was that what Zack's voice sounded like, back when he was alive?

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