Chapter Text
The smell of antiseptic, the steady mechanical beeping of the machines, and the dull, throbbing pain in his head are the first things Cloud becomes aware of as he gradually regains consciousness.
The next thing is a heavy hand covering his own.
He tries to speak, but his tongue feels like lead, and all that comes out as a muffled groan.
The rest of his body is heavy, immovable. He can’t even open his eyes, but the moment he stirs, the hand instantly reacts. It clutches harder, while another—soft and warm—lands on his cheek.
“Cloud?”
The voice sounds worried yet hopeful, and Cloud wonders who it belongs to. It is strangely familiar, but he cannot place it.
“Get the doctor!” it barks at someone else who races out of the room, leaving Cloud in the care of those hands that won’t stop touching him.
It should probably bother him that he doesn’t know who they belong to, but he feels safe here. Every instinct he has is telling him to trust this person.
They murmur softly into his ear, so Cloud tries to listen, but he can’t keep up. The words are too fast, whispered fervently, and he feels too dazed. All he can make out is an emphatic, “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
It sounds like a vow, and Cloud believes it.
He tries to move his fingers, to squeeze back and reassure his companion that he’s okay, but his limbs feel like they belong to someone else.
Slowly, with significant effort, he grasps the hand holding his. It feels unusually large; much bigger than Tifa’s.
It must be a man’s hand, Cloud realizes, but whose?
The first person that comes to mind is Barret, but when something soft and warm touches his knuckles, Cloud knows it can’t be him. They’ve become good friends over the years, but even now, Barret would rather eat dirt than kiss him.
So who?
The hand that was on his cheek wanders into his hair, caressing in a way that feels shockingly familiar.
Cloud’s body recognizes this hand, even if his mind doesn’t.
“Wh…” he croaks, but his throat is too dry.
“Shh, take it easy. The doctor is coming.” The hand moves his bangs away, sliding once more over his cheek. “Do you want some water?”
Cloud tries to nod, but his head just lolls against his shoulder. Keeping it up is too much effort, but what he does is enough for the person tending to him to understand.
They leave for a few moments, and when they return, they lift Cloud into a sitting position and press a plastic cup to his lips.
“Open your mouth.”
Cloud does.
It could be poison for all he knows, but he trusts this voice implicitly.
After a few sips, his throat starts to feel a little better. He can finally breathe without the air scraping over his vocal cords like sandpaper.
“Thank you,” he rasps, profoundly grateful. He leans against his savior’s chest and realizes they smell familiar. They smell like home.
But what does that mean?
Who could this be?
Dying to know, Cloud musters his feeble strength and forces his eyes open.
The first thing he sees are arms wrapped around his middle, clinging tightly. There is a simple silver band on one of the fingers, but it means nothing to Cloud. He doesn’t recognize these hands, so he turns in the embrace, hoping to find something familiar, and he does—hair as silver as the ring he saw and eyes the color of mako.
Cloud flinches immediately, but he’s too weak to fight, and the hands follow him.
One returns to his face, still shockingly gentle, while those eerie mako eyes loom ever closer—closer than they’ve ever been—until they’re but inches away.
Dark circles surround them, making Sephiroth appear haggard, and that’s not the only thing that strikes Cloud as strange.
Sephiroth is wearing regular clothes—a pair of jeans and a t-shirt—that look completely out of place. It’s as if he stole them on the way there, hoping to blend in, but he still stands out like a sore thumb.
His hair is different, too. It’s tied in a loose bun, with bangs hanging loosely around his face, making it appear almost sallow.
But the strangest thing is that when he looks at Cloud, his eyes light up with warmth that has no right being there.
“Never scare me like that again,” he whispers, leaning in, far too close for comfort.
He inches closer and closer to Cloud’s face, filling him with panic that finally gives him the burst of adrenaline he needed to shove Sephiroth away. He recoils so violently he almost falls right off the bed, but Sephiroth’s hands steady him, keeping him in place.
Their presence on Cloud’s body suddenly feels like a violation. An unwelcome invasion of his personal space.
He squirms, but he cannot shake them.
The machines go off around him, blaring in alarm as his heart rate goes through the roof.
“What’s wrong?” Sephiroth asks, looking around as if searching for the source of Cloud’s distress. As if his mere presence isn’t enough to give him a heart attack.
He taps the call button repeatedly, but Cloud doesn’t even notice. He’s too busy searching for something he could use to defend himself.
His breaths come out in shallow gasps, so fast it feels like he might pass out. But he mustn’t! He can’t put himself in such a vulnerable position. He’ll sooner die than let Sephiroth turn him into a puppet again!
“Calm down,” Sephiroth says, leaning closer, but Cloud shoves him away again—as hard as he can in his weakened state.
“Why are you here?” he demands, and Sephiroth has the gall to look hurt.
“Where else would I be? What do y—”
“Don’t touch me!!”
Cloud is too weak to do anything, but he will not go down without a fight.
He yanks the IV out of his arm and points it at Sephiroth like a shiv. It is pointless, and he knows it. Even when he’s not this weak, defeating Sephiroth always takes a lot out of him. With nothing but a needle in his hand, he doesn’t even stand a chance.
But instead of attacking, Sephiroth stands there frozen, looking utterly horrified.
“Cloud, what in the world—”
Everything gets a million times worse when the door opens and Tifa walks in.
She moves around the room, completely oblivious, as if she can’t see the danger in front of her. As if there isn’t a mass murderer standing by Cloud’s bedside.
When she brushes past Sephiroth, Cloud goes numb with panic.
“Stay away from her!” he bellows, making them both freeze and stare at him in shock.
He can’t understand what’s happening here.
Why is Tifa so calm? And why isn’t Sephiroth attacking?
It feels like the answer is right in front of him, but his brain is still woozy from the painkillers.
Cloud struggles to get up, determined to protect Tifa… but there are cords and cables tying him to the bed.
In his desperation, he starts ripping them out, ignoring Tifa screaming at him to stop.
“Get behind me!” he orders, but for some reason, she keeps standing where she is—right next to Sephiroth!
He has to get to her. He has to protect her. He can’t let anyone else die!
Cloud takes a step toward them, but his legs can’t hold him. They give out the moment his feet touch the floor, and he falls, his consciousness slipping away once more.
He prepares for pain, but it never comes.
Strong arms catch him before he crashes to the floor.
They pull him against a broad, chiseled chest, and the last thought Cloud has before everything goes black is that it feels too flat to be Tifa’s.
The next time he regains consciousness, Cloud is still hooked to the machines, surrounded by their beeping. There’s still an overpowering smell of antiseptic, and there’s still plenty of pain.
But now, it’s all overshadowed by a lingering fear.
Immediately, he forces his eyes open, frantically searching the room, but all he finds is Tifa sitting in a chair next to his bed.
When she realizes he’s awake, she jumps up and approaches.
“Cloud!”
She touches his cheek, tilting his face toward her. Her touch is familiar, boundlessly gentle and caring, yet it feels wrong. It feels like something is missing.
Vaguely, Cloud remembers another hand touching him, but he wants to believe that was only a nightmare.
Still, he keeps looking around nervously, checking every corner, but to his relief, they are alone.
“You okay?”
“Am I okay?” Tifa shakes her head in disbelief. “I’m not the one in the hospital, Cloud. You had us all so worried!”
“Yeah, well… it’s not like I planned this.” He winces in pain as he tries to sit up, and Tifa immediately reaches over to help. “What happened to me?”
“You crashed your bike on the way back to Edge.”
“Shit,” he mutters. “Fenrir?”
“It’s fine, Cloud. You should worry about yourself. You’re the one who got banged up.”
He groans, the pain shooting through his shoulders every time he moves. He feels like he got hit by a truck.
“Did I break anything?”
“No, you got lucky. You could have been paralyzed or worse, but all you got was a mild concussion.”
With the way his head is throbbing, it doesn’t feel very mild, but Cloud doesn’t have the energy to argue.
“Great,” he grunts, touching the back of his head and finding it covered in bandages. Beneath them, there is a rather large, extremely tender bump. “Ow,” he says in a whiny voice, making them both laugh.
“Don’t be a baby. You’ll live.”
Cloud smiles, nodding. “I’ll be fine as long as I don’t have any more dreams or hallucinations… or whatever the hell that was.”
“You were hallucinating?”
“Yeah… I saw Sephiroth.”
Tifa’s smile drops. “What do you mean?”
“I thought he was here, paying me a visit,” Cloud says, rolling his eyes at how ludicrous that sounds, but Tifa doesn’t find it funny.
“He was here,” she says slowly, studying him. “He’s out there still. He was absolutely livid when they wouldn’t let him see you, so he made a huge scene.”
Cloud blinks rapidly, unable to believe what he’s hearing.
“What…?”
“I don’t know what happened between you two, but you panicked when you saw him, so the nurses kicked him out. I think it hurt him a lot.”
The beeping grows louder, drawing Tifa’s attention. She gently squeezes Cloud’s hand, trying to soothe him.
“Hey, it’s okay. I’m not calling you out or anything. Whatever it was, I’m sure you’ll work it out.”
“You’re not making any sense… Why would Sephiroth be here? Isn’t he dead?”
“Dead?!” Tifa sounds utterly shocked, making Cloud feel like he’s losing his mind.
Nothing makes sense anymore.
“We killed him, remember? We stopped him from destroying the world.”
“Cloud… that was twelve years ago.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. It was two years ago at most!”
Tifa stares at him in silence, her eyes almost pitying.
“What year do you think it is?”
It’s a simple question, but the way she asks fills Cloud with unease. It feels like a test.
“[ ν ] – εγλ 0011.”
There is a slight tremble to Tifa’s frame when she gets up, and Cloud immediately knows he got it wrong.
“I’ll be right back.”
“Wait! You can’t leave me hanging! Tell me what’s going on!”
“I need a moment to think, Cloud. I—I need to talk to Sephiroth.”
Cloud grabs her wrist, stopping her.
“Have you lost your mind? Why would you talk to him?”
When she doesn’t immediately answer, he tries to pull her back, but she doesn’t let him.
“I don’t know how much I should tell you…”
“Tell me everything!”
“I want to, but I don’t want to freak you out again.”
“Freak me out?” he repeats incredulously, feeling more than a little freaked out already.
“Yes, Cloud, I… I think you forgot the last ten years of your life. And I don’t want to say anything that would confuse you even more.”
Ten years?
“Tifa—”
Their conversation is interrupted when a nurse barges into the room, looking angry as hell.
“Mr. Strife, your husband insists on seeing you. He won’t take no for an answer.”
Cloud’s head fills with white noise.
Underneath it, all he can hear is the thundering of his own heart.
As if in slow motion, the wool is pulled from his eyes, letting him see the truth, but he cannot bear it.
He clutches his head and screams until his throat turns raw.
In a matter of seconds, the room is flooded with doctors and nurses shouting something unintelligible, forcing him to lie down, but they don’t understand. Cloud has to get up and fight! He has to protect everyone! He’s the only one who stands a chance against Sephiroth! It’s all up to him! He has to…
Suddenly, his eyelids grow heavy.
They must have drugged him because, try as he might, he can’t keep his eyes open.
He makes one last, sluggish attempt to rise…
And then there’s only darkness.
A few days later, Cloud is sitting on a small bed in what used to be his room, unable to believe how much everything has changed.
At first, when Tifa told him he was missing ten years of his life, it sounded impossible, but the more he sees, the harder it is to deny it.
Marlene is already sixteen, and she’s grown so much that her head now reaches all the way up to Cloud’s chin. She looks like an entirely different person, and Denzel… He’s turned into a young man, tall enough to tower over Cloud, which is something he really doesn’t want to acknowledge or focus on.
There are signs everywhere he looks, even in this room. The clutter and boxes are all over the floor, making it clear no one’s lived in it for a while. Based on what Tifa told him, he occasionally slept here when he stayed over at Seventh Heaven, but he spent most of his time in Kalm… with his husband.
The word still makes Cloud’s skin crawl.
After everything Sephiroth has done, after all the ways he has hurt him, Cloud can’t imagine agreeing to marry him willingly.
And therein lies the catch.
He’s convinced Sephiroth spent the last ten years controlling him like a puppet, forcing him to submit, convincing everyone around them that it was normal… Until a blow to Cloud’s head unscrambled his brain, freeing him from Sephiroth’s influence.
It sounds far-fetched, and Cloud has no idea how Sephiroth could have been strong enough to achieve it, but it’s the only explanation he has. It certainly makes more sense than him being with Sephiroth because he chose to!
The thing Cloud can’t understand, though, is how Sephiroth managed to fool all of his friends.
Tifa, who used to hate him with every fiber of her being, turned into his staunch defender, using every chance to tell Cloud what a great guy he’s turned into.
What a load of crap.
Cloud doesn’t believe it for a second. All it does is make him even more suspicious. It makes him wonder if Sephiroth found a way to control his friends too.
Perhaps he’s grown so strong that he could control multiple people for years on end, and that…
That is utterly terrifying.
But that’s not even the worst of it. The scariest part is that Cloud has no idea what Sephiroth’s end goal might be.
If he had them all under his spell for years, why didn’t he destroy the world? What was stopping him?
Was there some new monstrosity he was waiting to unleash?
Cloud groans and rubs his face, wishing he could understand, but maybe it’s not possible to find logic in the actions of a madman.
In the end, all this worrying has just given him a headache, made worse by the lingering effects of his concussion.
The doctor ordered him to avoid stressors, but right now, that’s impossible. Simply existing in a world where Sephiroth is his husband is putting Cloud under an immense amount of pressure.
He has to fix this, but he doesn’t know how.
“You awake?” Tifa asks with a little knock against the door frame.
“Yeah.”
“You missed lunch. I thought you were sleeping, so I didn’t want to wake you.”
“It’s fine. I’m not hungry anyway.”
“You have to eat, Cloud. Your body needs energy to heal.”
“I’m fine,” he repeats, even though he feels anything but.
Unfortunately, Tifa knows him well enough to see right through his lie. She shuffles into the room and joins him on the bed.
“You wanna talk?”
“Not really.”
“Really?” she asks dubiously, tilting her head. “There’s nothing you want to ask? Nothing you’re curious about?”
Cloud shrugs. “You already told me everything.”
“Not by a long shot. Ten years is a long time, Cloud. I could spend weeks answering questions and still not cover even half of it.”
Cloud turns to look at her, and he can’t quite quell the rage he feels. “Alright, I have a question for you then. Why did you let it happen? How could you not know that he was controlling me?”
“Cloud…” Tifa’s eyes soften, filling with that awful pity again. “He wasn’t controlling you. Trust me. That’s the first thing I suspected. I did everything I could to drive you apart because I believed I was saving you… but you didn’t need saving. Your mind was perfectly clear. It was just love making you crazy.”
“Yeah, right,” Cloud snorts in disgust. As if he would ever be stupid enough to fall in love with that bastard.
“Love,” Tifa insists firmly. “You were head over heels. I’ve never seen you so happy.”
“That doesn’t sound like me at all, Tifa! You should know that. I’ve never been that crazy about anyone!”
“Not before him, but Cloud… you adored him. And he adored you right back.”
Cloud scoffs, not believing it for a second.
“That bastard could never love anyone but himself.”
“Oh, Cloud… you couldn’t be more wrong.”
All Cloud gets from this conversation is that he cannot trust Tifa; she’s clearly been compromised. The real Tifa would never forgive Sephiroth for the horrible things did. She’d never waste her breath trying to defend him.
But whatever happened to her, Cloud will undo it.
As soon as his strength returns, he’ll kill Sephiroth and save his friends.
Tifa pats his knee, drawing his attention.
“Come on, I’ll reheat some food for you. You need to eat.”
Cloud nods dumbly and follows her into the kitchen, his mind awhirl with plans and possibilities.
Eventually, after spending a couple of days brooding in his room, Cloud starts coming down for lunch. As difficult as it is to look at the kids and see how much they’ve grown, he refuses to let Sephiroth turn him into a recluse. This is his family, so he wants to get to know them again.
Denzel is no longer the shy, lonely kid Cloud remembers. He’s become a lot more confident over the years, and now he’s talking animatedly, telling Cloud about his interests and universities he’d planning to apply to.
Marlene seems just as curious and sharp-witted as before, but she’s even more observant now that she’s older. And she never holds back. If she has something to say, she makes sure everyone knows it.
The trouble is that she’s been eyeing Cloud for days now, the cogs in her head turning clear as day. He doesn’t know what Tifa told her, but it’s obvious that she has questions. Not that Cloud can blame her. They’ve all changed so much that he can barely recognize them, and the feeling must be mutual. After eight long years under Sephiroth’s control, his personality is probably completely different. Unrecognizable.
Marlene watches him now as Tifa passes the gravy and poses what at first sounds like a perfectly innocent question.
“When was the last time you saw Kadaj?”
The gravy slips from Tifa’s fingers, drenching everything on Cloud’s plate.
She blushes immediately, apologizing profusely, before running off to get him another.
It’s not a big deal, but her strange reaction leaves Cloud curious. He looks around the table and is shocked to find everyone staring at him like he’s about to snap.
“Kadaj?” he asks, but no one will meet his eyes. “The remnants are back?”
“No, no, nothing like that,” Tifa assures him with a tight smile. “You don’t need to worry about that right now. Just focus on getting well.”
“How can you say that? Cloud’s been here for almost two weeks. Kadaj is worried sick!”
“Marlene!” Tifa hisses, but the girl refuses to shut up.
“Uncle Sephiroth let me talk to him on the phone today—”
“Uncle Sephiroth…?” Cloud repeats incredulously.
The thought of that man being referred to as an uncle is utterly ridiculous, but that’s not even the biggest bombshell. In the next breath, Marlene delivers her final blow.
“—and he kept crying because he misses his dad!”
Deafening silence follows her words.
They echo in Cloud’s head, repeating over and over, but they refuse to make sense.
She can’t mean him… right?
He stands so abruptly that his chair topples over. Hitting the floor, it sounds like an explosion in the absolute silence of the room.
Without a word, he turns around and flees.
“Cloud,” Tifa calls after him, but he can’t stop. He practically runs to his room, his heart thundering in his ears.
What the hell has Sephiroth done to him?
A child…!
How dare he drag a child into their mess?
He hides his face in his hands, trying not to hyperventilate.
This feels like a cruel joke.
Cloud has always wanted a child, but this is a travesty. There’s no way in hell he agreed to raise a child with Sephiroth, especially not with a name like that. He’d never name his son after a monster like Kadaj!
Sephiroth must have forced him, there’s no doubt about it, and the thought makes Cloud sick to his stomach. It makes him wonder what else Sephiroth has done.
Did he fill the mind of an impressionable child with his evil plans? Did he turn Cloud’s son into a monster like him?
The thought leaves Cloud utterly broken. He cannot imagine anything worse than his own son turning into Sephiroth. It’s unthinkable. Unforgivable. Even if he kills Sephiroth today, it might be too late to undo the damage he’s already done.
“Hey,” Tifa says softly as she enters the room. She pulls up a storage box and sits across from Cloud, but he’s too angry to look at her.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he demands, too tired to play nice anymore. He feels betrayed and powerless, frustrated by his own stupidity.
“I didn’t want you to find out like this. I told Marlene not to mention it, but you know how she is.”
“Tifa… I’m not upset that she told me. I’m upset that you didn’t!”
“I didn’t think you were ready to hear it, Cloud. And honestly, your reaction is proving me right.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, was I supposed to be glad that my son is apparently being groomed by Sephiroth?!”
“I know you can’t believe me right now, but he’s actually a really great dad.”
Cloud tries not to gag.
It was hard to imagine Sephiroth as an uncle, but the thought of him as a dad is utterly preposterous! It’s an insult to every father out there in the world.
Cloud looks up at the ceiling and tries to regain some semblance of control.
“How old is he?”
“He’s four.”
“And he’s… really mine?”
“He is.”
Biting his lips, Cloud tries to picture his son, but he can’t. After all, the boy could take after his mother. He might not resemble Cloud at all.
Which leads him to his next question.
“Who’s the mother? Were you… I mean… Did we use a surrogate?”
Tifa is his best friend, so he can’t imagine asking anyone else, but the question visibly shocks her.
“Oh, heavens, no!” She blushes furiously, suddenly looking very awkward. “I mean… I would have considered it, had you asked. But you didn’t need me.”
“What do you mean? Who was it?”
Cloud squirms impatiently, feeling a little nauseous.
It doesn’t help that Tifa looks very uncomfortable, so he already knows he’s not going to like the answer.
“Just tell me.”
“Well… Kadaj doesn’t technically have a mother.”
Cloud frowns, his discomfort rising.
“What the hell does that mean? How can he not have a mother?”
Did Sephiroth grow him a fucking lab?
Cloud imagines a clone—a miniature version of Sephiroth himself—and the thought of raising such a creature as his own child disturbs him more than anything else he’s heard so far.
But then Tifa kneels at his feet and takes his hands into hers.
“I need you to stay calm, okay? Don’t freak out.”
“You’re already freaking me the fuck out,” he says, feeling his stomach lurch.
“Kadaj doesn’t have a mother because he has two dads.” Tifa’s hands squeeze harder, her nails digging into Cloud’s skin. “There was no surrogate, Cloud. He’s your son… Yours and Sephiroth’s.”
It sounds like a joke, something straight out of a horror movie, but the moment is too grave, and Cloud knows Tifa wouldn’t play with him like that.
His stomach lurches again, the bile rising to his throat.
“But… we’d still need a surrogate,” he says, sounding a little desperate. He’s grasping at straws, and he knows it. “Two men can’t make babies together, Tifa.”
“I honestly don’t know how it worked… All you told me was that Sephiroth used Jenova’s cells to temporarily alter your body and make it possible for you to carry a child.”
Cold sweat drips down Cloud’s forehead. His hands begin to shake.
He stares at Tifa in disbelief.
“He mutilated my body… and you knew?”
“It wasn’t like that, Cloud! You both agreed to it. It wasn’t a spur of the moment decision. It was your dream! You wanted a child, so you talked Sephiroth into giving it to you.”
Cloud shakes his head, unseeing. This is all too much to take in.
The thought of giving birth to a child with Sephiroth’s DNA—and by extension, Jenova’s—makes him so queasy that he runs to the bathroom and empties the contents of his stomach.
After a while, Tifa shows up behind him and holds his head while he heaves and cries. It takes him a long time to calm down.
“There’s too much you don’t remember, Cloud. You keep judging Sephiroth based on his past actions, but there’s more to him than that.”
There’s nothing that bastard could have done to redeem himself, but Cloud is too emotionally drained to keep arguing. There’s no winning this, anyway. Tifa has clearly been brainwashed, and that’s not her fault.
There’s only one person to blame here—and Cloud does. He hates Sephiroth more than ever before, and he vows to make him suffer for destroying every single aspect of his life.
Meanwhile, Tifa keeps trying to convince him the child was his idea; that Sephiroth was reluctant to do it at first because he was deeply worried about the consequences it could have on Cloud’s health. According to her, he spent Cloud’s entire pregnancy clinging to his side, fretting.
Cloud cannot imagine it. Any kind of human emotion on that alien face is far beyond his ability to conceive.
But perhaps Sephiroth was worried about losing his heir. Perhaps his plans involved the child in some way. It would explain why he spent all those years waiting.
Long after Tifa leaves, Cloud keeps staring at his stomach, unable to believe there was a living being inside it. He examines his skin, looking for stretch marks or any other signs that he could have been pregnant, but there are none. He wants to believe this is only a nightmare, but he can’t afford to hide his head in the sand. Sephiroth himself was supposed to be a nightmare too, but that never stopped him from destroying Cloud’s life.
This isn’t something he can run from.
His son will be his responsibility, and since the child carries Sephiroth’s genetic material, there’s no telling what he’ll turn into. He could be another monster in the making, and someday, it might be up to Cloud to stop him. And maybe that’s precisely what Sephiroth is counting on—Cloud’s inability to raise his sword against his own child.
It terrifies Cloud that he might be right.
He wants to believe he would always do the right thing and choose the world over his own feelings, but he’s never had to hurt a child before.
Certainly not his own.
And that scares him to death.
Not even a day later, Cloud decides he can no longer wait.
Now that he knows he has a son, he cannot leave him with Sephiroth for even a moment longer. He has to save him.
He’s still weak, and his mind is still hazy, so he’ll have to rely on the element of surprise. Hopefully, Sephiroth won’t expect him to attack so soon because that’s the only chance he’s got.
He grabs his sword and heads out, but he doesn’t count on Tifa trying to stop him.
He doesn’t tell her where he’s going or what he’s planning to do, but she must have guessed anyway because she keeps getting in his way. There are suddenly countless things she needs him to do around the house, and none of them can wait.
Unfortunately for her, Cloud sees right through her plans, so he promises to do everything when he returns and speeds off toward Kalm without wasting a second.
In the rearview mirror, he sees Tifa speaking on the phone, waving her hands in the air, the way she does when she’s agitated, and Cloud knows, he just knows she’s talking to Sephiroth, warning him about his arrival.
So much for the element of surprise.
The betrayal stings, leaving Cloud with a heavy feeling in his heart, but he doesn’t blame Tifa.
The only one to blame for all this is Sephiroth himself.