The Strife delivery service was still going strong a year after Sepheroth’s attempt to resurrect himself through Kadage and his gang. While the number of monsters in the world have greatly reduced with the lack of Mako reactors, some areas were still feared and so only a few people were willing to make a trip through them. One of them was Cloud.
He couldn’t hear much over the sound of his engine, but after all the battles he had been through, Cloud had a sort of hyper-awareness of his surroundings, it helped that few creatures could keep pace with his motorbike, so he only needed to scan the horizon ahead to avoid stumbling into something.
At the moment, he was traveling along a paved road, with little to nothing ahead of him. Focusing farther though he saw a thick fog approaching in the distance. As it grew closer he began to slow down, so that he could keep an eye out for anybody who might unwarily attempt to cross the street ahead of him when something seemed to catch the back wheel of his bike, the force causing it to turn over while he lept off to avoid scraping along the ground with it.
He walked over to the bike to inspect it, while everything seemed ok, the engine would not start, nor could he see what the tire had caught on. Opening the storage slots on the bike he pulled his buster sword out of one. It was already assembled at the moment, so he strapped it to his back and headed forward on foot.
It was difficult to make out much of anything with the fog as thick as it was, but eventually buildings began to come into view. Cloud’s eyes narrowed, seeing a complete lack of people in this town was suspicious enough on it’s own.
“Cloud..” A voice whispered from down one of the streets.
“Who’s there?” He called back, walking quickly but still unable to see where the voice came from. The voice continued to call, the direction changing slightly, and soon Cloud found himself running through the fog in an attempt to chase it down. Before long he was standing at the entrance to an amusement park.
The voice called again from inside, suspiciously, Cloud walked in, putting a hand on the hilt of his sword. “I’m not here to play games.” he called out into the fog. The voice lead him through a portion of the park, then called from inside a single building, Cloud sighed looking at it, a house of mirrors, it was quite obviously a trap.
Walking into the maze, he heard the voice again “Its good to see you, Cloud”
“Sepheroth!” he demanded “Where are you.” he looked around quickly to see if he could catch a glimpse in any of the mirrors, but there was nothing there.
“Right where I belong don’t you remember?” the voice mocked “Haunting your memories”
“Get out of my head!” Cloud shouted angrily.
“I thought you’d never ask” Suddenly Sepheroth’s image appeared in a mirror directly in front of Cloud. Immediately Cloud swung his sword, stumbling forward as he found no resistance from the mirror, or his foe.
He looked around quickly, finding the entire place to be different. The mirrors were broken, rust and grime covering the edges of the glass on nearly all of them, making it practically impossible to mistake the reflections for anything real.
As he moved onward, he began to hear footsteps in the distance, heavy and labored as they drew closer to him. “Where are you?” He called, moving towards the sound, around a corner he nearly didn’t see, a figure stepped out, mostly it appeared to be human, except for a large metallic shape atop it’s shoulders, what his eyes immediately latched onto however was what the thing was carrying; a Masamune.
Although it had no visible eyes, it noticed him right away and began to move towards Cloud. Ready with his buster sword he took a swing, the creature brought up it’s own sword, blocking the attack from cutting it, but without enough strength to prevent it’s self from being thrown back across the hall.
“What do you want?” Cloud demanded as the creature simply stood it’s self back up and began to approach him again. “Answer me!” He swung his sword, knocking the creature back down again, as it got it’s self back up he realized at this rate he’d just be knocking the thing over all day long. Not really having any reason to stick around anyway, he rushed off, leaving the strange creature in the distance.
Not sure where to go, he wandered his way into another building, hoping to find some answers from somebody. There was a long hallway in this building, with doors along each side, picking the nearest one, Cloud tried to turn the handle, but it was apparently locked.
He continued trying doors, finding one locked after another. In frustration he kicked one, it remained unmoved. He reached for his sword, but then decided against it. No way these doors are all locked by accident, something must want him to find the right one. Grumbling to himself he continued down the hall until he did find a door that would open.
Pushing the door open, Cloud immediately saw a grimy bed, in the left side of the room, looking across to the right he saw some sort of strange creature, barely resembling anything living. As it noticed him it lunged forward, quickly being sliced in half as Cloud whipped his sword from around his shoulder.
Clearly it was not a powerful creature, he thought as he went to examine it, but it was horribly grotesque. Was this Sepheroth’s doing? Is there a Mako reactor around here he didn’t know about? Now wanting answers, he walked back into the hall, kicking every door to see if it’d open.
It wasn’t long before he found himself entering a library, he looked around quickly to make sure the coast was clear.
“Why, hello there”
Cloud pulled out his sword and pointed it at the chin of the man who now stood before him “I knew you were behind this Hojo! Where did you put the Mako reactor?”
“I don’t know who this Hojo you’re talking about is, or anything about ‘mako reactors'” the man said, his visage melting away into a different person as he pushed the sword away from himself with a finger “I am Father Vincent, and I can assure you I have not heard of any Hojos here”
Suddenly Vincent was standing behind Cloud, turning around quickly he saw the man tossing one of his materia in the air and catching it “What a fascinating little object you have here though” he grinned widely, an unsettling smile somewhere between knowing and manic.
“Give that back!” Cloud demanded swinging his sword towards the strange man, who took a step back to avoid it
“Take it then” Vincent grinned again, tossing it at Cloud. “You are not of this world are you?” Cloud caught the materia, and looked down to slot it back into his sword “Then again, neither am I” as Cloud looked up quickly the man was gone.