Deep in the lush jungles of the Southern Islands, a small white Chocobo hopped and skipped along the wooden beams of the abandoned town of Mideel. In the middle of the destroyed village, the Lifestream spring gurgled, large bubbles sitting lazily on its surface, as the Chocobo walked along the fallen stilts of the weapon shop.
       Suddenly, over one particularly deep section of the green pool, the bubbles raised and burst at a faster rate than any of the others. The white bird froze in its tracks, staring at the thick cluster of bubbles. The surface of the spring rippled, and then an arm broke the through the green foam. It was a long arm, with well-defined muscles wrapped in smooth, pale skin. Shoulders and a head followed the arm's path, and then a second arm. All were bare, save for some long pale hair atop the head.
       The Chocobo ran up to a higher perch as the figure waded toward shore. It was a man, clad only in black, military-issue trousers. Standing on the edge of the Lifestream pool, he stared up at the waning night sky, where a few stars still twinkled. His aquamarine irises glistened in the fading starlight, hard round pupils shining as though they were brand new.
       The man heard a rustling sound in some nearby bushes and turned his head to see what it was. After fruitlessly scanning the area with his eyes, he sat down on a pile of wooden beams. Staring into the green spring, he noticed something unusual about his reflection. He leaned in for a closer look, a smile crossing his face.
       "Goodbye, Mother," he whispered to the pool. "I am finally free of your influence…"

       Half a world away, a similarly strange event was taking place. Rising with incredible swiftness out of the center of a small but very deep lake, a black figure broke free of the watery surface. With two massive, batlike wings protruding from his back, and two black horns on his hairless head, he looked like a demon, a Dark Prince of Chaos. His great wings flapping slowly, he hovered over the spot of the lake from which he had arisen and drew his red cloak close around him. He took a look at his surroundings; the lake was completely surrounded by mountains, and at one end, there was a waterfall and a narrow patch of grass and dirt. It was to this ledge that he flew, to the path that led behind the waterfall to a small cavern. From inside, a bluish-white glow illuminated the otherwise dark passageway, and he could hear a woman's voice calling his name. As he walked deeper into the cave, he could feel his wings and claws starting to disappear, and in their place, his true human form, topped with a head full of long and tousled black hair. By the time he reached the center of the cavern, his transformation was complete, and he stood there, naked save for his red cloak and a metal glove that went up to his left elbow. From within a radiant altar at the very back of the cave, a woman in a long white coat emerged and walked toward him in silence. He took her in his arms; as he did so, she broke out into tears. The man closed his eyes and stroked the woman's long brown hair. "It's all right, my love," he whispered. "I'm here for you…"

*****

       He was growing impatient. The Turks had told him the day before that Cloud and his friends were in Corel, en route to the Gold Saucer. From his office in the Shinra Building, he put one hand to his throbbing forehead and pinched his eyes shut. This new model Sith, CAIT, was taking some getting used to. He started to reach for the bottle of painkillers that sat atop his desk when two figures popped up through the chute in the Saucer's Wonder Square. He kept his eyes closed and forgot about the drugs. The show was about to begin.
       Using his visual receptors, he could make out the first figure as Cloud Strife-- that spiky hair was recognizable to anyone familiar with the current Most Wanted list. The second figure, standing next to him, was a girl with a long braided ponytail, and wearing a long dress. His machine immediately walked toward the couple and offered to tell them their fortunes, introducing itself as Cait Sith.
       "You can only read the future?" Cloud asked the machine.
       "You kidding? I can find missing things, missing people, anything!"
       "Then can you tell me where a man named Sephiroth is?"
       He was, by now, completely in character, and started Cait Sith dancing. The fortunes, both the dummy ones and the one that he and Tseng had picked out, were at the ready.

       Reeve awoke from this dream not long after, to a humid summer morning. A thick mist permeated the streets and lawns of Nibelheim, and even though the sun shone brightly, it was completely hidden behind an endless mass of gray clouds. The first thing he noticed as he stood up was that he was sweating. Sighing heavily at the thought of a heat wave, Reeve took off the white shirt he usually wore to bed, leaving him in drawstring pajama bottoms. He wiped the sweat off with his shirt and tossed it on the bed. As he went to open the window, he heard the master bedroom's doors swoosh open.
       Immediately turning to see who it was, he was surprised to see the doors swoosh shut again. It was only in the instant before they closed that he made out a swinging mass of short blond hair.
       "Elena?" he said.
       From behind the door, he heard her stammer, "Sorry, sir! I should have knocked first."
       Reeve raised an eyebrow. "You didn't have to rush back out like that."
       "I'm sorry! It's just that--"
       "Listen, is there something you wanted to tell me?"
       "Yes sir, it's quite urgent. A message arrived from the Nexus just a moment ago. I… don't think I can tell you what it says… you'll probably want to read it for yourself."
       "Very well. Stay right there."
       Grabbing his bathrobe from a nearby chair, he put it on as he walked to the double doors, then opened the one closest to him with a sweeping gesture, mimicking Elena's previous entrance. The blond Turk jumped away from the door as Reeve opened it. He leaned against the doorjamb and looked at her, his eyes alight with amusement. Elena briefly felt the blood rushing to her face; she quickly calmed herself and gave the Nexus telegram to Reeve. He read it, the expression on his face changing to one of surprise and anger. He gave the sheet of paper back to Elena and said, "Good work," before storming down the hall toward the staircase that would take him to his office in the basement. The last thing she heard him say before he disappeared around the corner was his muttering, "I thought we killed that silver-haired bastard…"

       Across the world, many others were having similar reactions to the Nexus missive, which stated that a man, partially dressed in black, with long silver hair and a muscular physique, had emerged from the Lifestream fissure that had cracked open under the town of Mideel. For many years afterward, residents in Icicle Inn would tell tales of the curses they heard Cid yell out--from over fifty miles away-- on that fateful morning. Nanaki became extremely upset by the news and crawled under Bugenhagen's old couch, trying to sort out his confused feelings. The leaders of Wutai were in an uproar, furious that the former Shinra commander who had humiliated them in the last great war had cheated death yet again. Barret, visiting Marlene and Elmyra in Kalm, for once, found himself speechless; in Junon, President Shinra had the same reaction. Reeve talked to all of them that morning, in his own quest to figure out what to do about this newcomer who may or may not be Sephiroth. The video recorded by his Choco Sith in Mideel was too grainy to make out any defining features of the stranger other than those described by BlueJay. Finally, as he ended his last call and gazed at the books around him, the phone rang one more time. It was BlueJay himself. Reeve demanded, "BlueJay, what the hell's going on? What did your people see in Mideel anyway?"
       "We aren't entirely sure at the moment, but we have every corner of the main island under our surveillance. The residents of the old Mideel village have set up a new town, called Madrigal, not far from the Lifestream fissure. At this moment, we believe that the silver-haired man was taken there by one of the locals."
       "Do you have any confirmation that it's Sephiroth?"
       "Not yet. Don't you have some Chocobos in the Southern Islands?"
       "It's none of your concern where my Chocobos are located."
       There was a brief pause on the other end of the line. "Very well. I'll stay out of your business. If I get any new information about this stranger, I'll let you and the other leaders know."
       "I'll do the same."
       "For right now, the important thing we all have to do is remain calm."
       "It'll be hard for everyone to do that, believe me."

*****

       After wandering away from the Lifestream pool, Sephiroth found himself on the outskirts of Madrigal, which was still partially under construction. One of the locals, who, like many of the townspeople, didn't recognize the former SOLDIER, offered him a meal and a place to stay. Sephiroth accepted, and quickly blended in with the villagers. For the next few days, he worked among them, struggling to recover more details of his past. The only things he could remember were his disdain for his monstrous mother, and the final release from her grip.
       One day, as Sephiroth cut down trees with some of the other village men, he saw a small green Chocobo with large purple eyes. He picked some greens from the base of a nearby tree stump and beckoned the bird to come closer. The Chocobo complied, and walked toward him slowly, a little bit wary of the tall man. Stopping in front of Sephiroth, the bird gazed him straight in the eye and, in an instant, snatched the greens from his hand and dashed back into the wood. Sephiroth scratched his head and finally laughed. "These Chocobos are shy creatures, aren't they?"
       The Chocobo stopped running once he heard the laughter. After listening for a moment, he hid the greens in a patch of tall sawgrass, then made his way toward the broken beams of Mideel. The Lifestream was lapping at the edges of the pool, as though it had recently been disturbed by something from down below. The bird hopped among the beams, occasionally staring down into the green liquid, when a shiny glint of silver caught his eye. It was a sword, longer than most ordinary swords, at the shallow edge of the pool where the hospital used to be. The Chocobo ran over to the blade and tried to move it. When he found that he couldn't, he flew up to a vertically-standing beam near the sword and waited. Soon, two full-grown Chocobos emerged from the forest and carried it away.

       Back in Nibelheim, Reeve returned these three Choco Siths to autopilot, once the blade, the Masamune Sword, had been well hidden. Thanks to them, he now had all the evidence he needed to prove that the stranger was Sephiroth. There was just one thing about him that struck Reeve as strange, something he described to BlueJay in an electronic message later that afternoon:

       You may remember that his pupils were elongated, like a cat's. However, as you will notice in the video still which I am sending you, these same pupils are round. I wonder if it was the destruction of Jenova that changed his physical appearance; if that is the case, then his mentality may have altered as well. Your agents have recently reported that if he is Sephiroth, then he must have some form of amnesia. I hope that I have confirmed the stranger's identity for you, and would like to be kept posted on any further developments.

       Reeve sent the message and got up from his desk to idly stare at the books in the library's corridor. Many of these volumes contained Shinra's scientific secrets, most of them related to the Jenova Project. For a moment, he wondered if anything from the massive corporate library in Midgar survived Meteor's impact, and made a mental note to find out one of these days.
       As he began to leave the library, his PHS rang. It was the doctor in Costa del Sol who had been taking care of Yuffie. She was still very weak from her ordeal in Tseng's safehouse, and refused to say anything about the former Turk's plan, out of the fear that he would kill her. Yuffie's behavior struck Reeve as uncharacteristically paranoid, and he felt pity for the young ninja who had been changed by her ordeal. From his other sources, there was, similarly, no updates regarding Tseng.

*****

        Having recently retired from Shinra's military, William Jung arrived on the largest of the Southern Islands to start his new life. The former first-class SOLDIER breathed in the salty ocean air, finding the island's laid-back demeanor quite soothing. He dismounted from his gold Chocobo and walked toward the jungle, trying to find a path that would take him to Madrigal. As he made his way through the dense foliage, he came upon a small clearing, where a few villagers were picking fruit from the trees. Among them was a tall man with flowing silver hair. Jung recognized him immediately. After a moment of deliberation, he emerged from the jungle and asked one of the villagers how to get to town. As she gave him directions, Jung glanced over at Sephiroth. Once Jung was pointed in the right direction, he walked over to the former SOLDIER commander.
       "Excuse me, Sephiroth?"
       The other villagers turned to look at Jung, surprised.
       "Who are you?" Sephiroth asked warily.
       "Sephiroth, what are you doing here? Where have you been all these years?"
       "What is this 'Sephiroth' you keep going on about?"
       "You are Sephiroth. I served under you in the Wutai War!"
       "That's ridiculous."
       "Then if you aren't Sephiroth, who are you? Where did you come from?"
       The silver-haired man paused. "I… don't know. Right now, I just wish to be left alone. Now if you excuse me…"
       Sephiroth picked up his basket, now full of fruit, and followed the other villagers out of the clearing, on the path that led back to Madrigal.

       In Nibelheim, on the Northern Continent, and aboard the BlueWing, a Nexus-coordinated conference call was taking place.
       "All right, so what happens now?"
        Reeve leaned back in his chair and pondered Zack's question, before answering, "Honestly, I don't know. BlueJay, any thoughts?"
       From over the line, he could hear the Nexus leader's deep, ponderous voice. "If your theory is correct, and he really is free of the will of Jenova… then…"
       "…Then what should we do about his amnesia?"
       "The Masamune would definitely jog his memory," Zack noted. "That much I'm sure of."
       "But do we want him to remember who he was?"
       "We're back where we started."
       There was silence on all ends. Then, Cid's voice cut in from Zack's end of the line.
       "Listen. If I remember correctly, Jenova was the one who wanted the Planet destroyed. Sephy was just her &*$% puppet. If Jenova's dead, then I don't see why we can't help the poor guy at least remember who he was. Who knows? Maybe some good'll come out of it. And if not, we can always kill the &*@# again, right?"
       The others pondered the rationality of Cid's words. Finally, Zack spoke up.
       "I'll go to Mideel, retrieve the Masamune, and bring it to Sephiroth in Madrigal."
       "No," Reeve said. "We need a more subtle approach. For this particular mission, anyway."
       BlueJay added, "I agree. Reeve, since it was your Chocobos who retrieved the Masamune, would you be willing to accept further control of this situation?"

       Over the next few days, Jung observed Sephiroth from a safe distance, wondering if his former commander's memory would ever recover. Sephiroth, in the meantime, was haunted by his encounter with the newcomer; it forced him to ask questions of himself that were lacking answers. Who am I? Where did I come from? Why am I here? He tried not to concentrate on these thoughts for too long, but found that he couldn't help himself. Then, one day, as he was helping the villagers to build a new school, the small green Chocobo from the other day reappeared.
       He stood right in front of Sephiroth, chirping and flapping his wings with excitement. Once he had gotten the man's attention, the Chocobo took off toward the edge of town. Sephiroth shrugged his shoulders and was about to resume working, when he heard the bird again. The Chocobo was looking straight at him, acting as excited as before. Sephiroth walked up to the bird.
       "Do you want me to follow you? Is that it?"
       "Wark! Wark!"
       "Very well. Lead the way."
       The Chocobo ran into the dense underbrush, with Sephiroth following closely behind. Finally, they came to a particularly isolated part of the jungle. The small bird disappeared in the bushes, leaving Sephiroth standing alone in the thick mass of plant life. In a few minutes, the Chocobo returned, with two larger ones following him. These full-grown Chocobos were carefully carrying a long, thin sword between their beaks; they opened their mouths and presented the blade to Sephiroth.
       He grasped the handle, and was struck as once by its familiarity. Swinging it at some plants like a machete, he started to remember all of the battles he and this sword had gone through; Wutai, Nibelheim, the heart of the Planet. He swung it again, and suddenly remembered the name of this, his, sword.
       "Masamune…"
       Just then, he heard a loud rustling sound in the trees behind him. Sephiroth whirled around, holding the Masamune in a defensive position. Jung emerged from the jungle, holding his palms outward.
       "Sephiroth, it's me… Jung…"
       "Yes, I remember you now… I remember it all. Before, the only memory I could recall was that of my Mother."
       "Your… mother?"
       Sephiroth smiled. "Yes. But you need not concern yourself with that. Can you please tell me… what happened after Meteor landed?"

*****

       "Vincent, what are you thinking of?"
       "Sephiroth is back, as am I. This must be some sort of mistake… If it is, the Planet certainly has a cruel sense of humor."
       Lucrecia, sitting behind Vincent, paused for a moment, then continued cutting his hair. "You mean, you were not meant to come back?"
       "Darling, do not think such things. Rather, I believe that someone else should have returned as well. But… why didn't she?"
       Silence.
       "Is my son still under the evil influence of Jenova?"
       Vincent pondered this question for a moment, then replied, "No. I'm fairly certain that Jenova is dead. What I am not sure of is what Sephiroth is like now. What I fear is imbalance…"
       Lucrecia stood up, letting piles of long black hair fall to the floor. Vincent shook his shortened locks and ran a hand through them. It was his first haircut since Hojo locked him away in the Shinra Mansion's basement, and he felt relieved to have his old hair back.
       "Imbalance…" she mused.
       "Yes. Again, I don't know if she will ever return to us, but in the meantime, he most certainly will…"

*****

        After a long detour spent on the sunny beaches near Cosmo Canyon, Saber found himself in the mountain village of Nibelheim. With all of the people that had moved there since Blue Shinra's creation, he expected to see a town that was quite different from the sleepy hamlet that he remembered. He'd come here many times in the past, the last being about five years ago, after the town was destroyed by Sephiroth. He and some others from the Gold Saucer had joined a Shinra cleanup crew to assist in the excavation effort. Since then, he'd heard that Nibelheim had been rebuilt, but the sight that encountered Saber was nothing short of eerie. With the exception of some new structures on the town's outskirts, every single building, barrel, and rock looked exactly the same as it had so many years before.
       He parked his motorcycle and reserved a room at the local inn before heading to the Nibel Mountains. If the town has changed this much, he wondered, what has happened to the Reactor? He'd heard about the conversion of the plant from Mako to wind-generated power, but he was mostly curious to see what had remained the same. One long hike later, Saber found himself on the level ledge of Mt. Nibel, where the old Reactor stood amidst Blue Shinra's newly erected wind turbines. He peered inside, then carefully walked across the pipes to access the main room. The now-legendary monster pods were gone, but at the top of the staircase, the inscription over the door remained: JENOVA. The door itself was welded shut. Saber shuddered. He started to leave the room when he was stopped by a harsh voice.
       "Halt! State your business."
       "Uh… I was just exploring the Reactor."
       Saber heard the click of a cocked trigger, then felt the cold stab of a gun's barrel pushing at the middle of his back. "You are trespassing on Blue Shinra property. I'm afraid you'll have to come with me."
       Without turning to see who the voice belonged to, Saber walked back down the mountainside, with his captor following from close behind.

       A few days later, Sephiroth and Jung left the Southern Islands for the mainland. Now fully up to date on the current situation, Sephiroth decided that his first course of action would be to find out more about Jenova. Once they reached the coast of Lower Junon, they headed to the nearest store to stock up on supplies. After purchasing some potions and remedies, Sephiroth sorted through the goods and found a small handheld computer. Confused, he immediately went back to the store, only to find that the clerk who had sold him the items had already finished her shift, and another had taken her place. When Sephiroth asked the new clerk about the computer, he scratched his head, saying that they didn't sell such devices there. Sephiroth nodded and left the store again. Curious, he turned the computer on, and some text started to scroll across the screen:

       Welcome to the Electronic Field Agent system.
       Brought to you by the BlueJay Nexus.

       1 Item Uploaded.

       CLOUD LOCATED: As stated earlier, Cloud Strife was last seen in a small boat off the coast of the Great Continent after the Highwind crashed. Also, we reported that his boat was later found washed ashore, but Cloud was nowhere to be found. A Zodiac symbol was branded onto the hull of the boat.
       We now know where Cloud is.
       A fake Huge Materia, which contains many of the same properties of an original Huge Materia, was placed near the boat, which had been moved to one of our labs. The result is as follows: the Zodiac symbol glowed, and we got a brief glimpse from Cloud's eyes through an odd distortion in time and space. He was in a castle, fighting a man with his Ultima Weapon. This man appeared to be a fencer, similar to those that fought in the ancient Mage Wars, during the second Post-Cetran Era. We sent several robotic probes through the distortion into this other world; a couple were lost, but the others returned with rock and soil specimens. Not long after we collected these samples, the boat spontaneously combusted, closing the portal. The rocks we retrieved are of roughly the same composition as several meteorites that hit this planet some 2000 years ago. Consulting our archives, we found that these meteorites originated from the Ajora star system, located approximately 900,000,000 light-years away. Apparently, this is where Cloud is, and right now, there's no way to get him back.

       "Fascinating," Reeve said as his eyes scanned the latest missive from the BlueJay Nexus. He reread the message then printed out copies for the Turks. With the printouts in hand, he walked to the front door, where he last saw Reno.
       He was still there, smoking a cigarette, when Reeve walked out onto the front steps. Reno took his copy of the printout and perused it, as absorbed by the message as Reeve was.
       "How the hell do those guys do it?" Reno mused.
       "Quite frankly, I have no idea. I remember when those meteorites were found… we had some astrophysicists at Shinra at the time, but that was years ago. Maybe they were really Nexus agents?"
       "Maybe…" Reno mused. "Anyway, it's good to hear that Cloud isn't completely lost."
       "Yeah." Reeve looked across the street over to where the Strife house stood. Something was nagging at the back of his mind, a misplaced memory, but he didn't know what it was. "Have you seen Rude or Elena?"
       "Elena rode to Rocket Town for lunch with Shera. Rude went to the Reactor to check on things. He should be back any minute now."
       Reeve nodded, and walked through the front gates. He leaned against the belly of a Moogle Sith that was standing guard there, and pondered the news about Cloud Strife. There was something that he once saw at Shinra… something in the Science Department… an image that was stuck in his head. He focused, trying to clear his mind, and stared at the Nexus message. Then, the sound of trudging footsteps interrupted his train of thought.
       He looked up in the direction of the footsteps and saw Rude, with a young man walking directly in front of him. The man had short brown hair, liquid blue eyes, and wore dark green trousers along with guard's boots, a white shirt, and a grey jacket. The patch on the jacket was a Gold Saucer logo. A long, curved sword in a sheath hung from his belt.
       "Rude, who's this?" Reeve asked the bald Turk.
       "Someone I caught snooping around the old Reactor. He says he was just exploring."
       "I was, sir!" the young man said. "Last time I was here was five years ago… when…"
       Reeve nodded. "The Sephiroth incident."
       "Yeah… I was really surprised to see the town like this… as though nothing ever happened."
       "At the time, Shinra wanted everyone to believe that nothing had happened. Now, who are you?"
       "Saber, sir. I used to work security at the Gold Saucer until recently."
       Scratching his chin, Reeve mused, "Yes, I think I remember you now… I saw you last time I was at the Saucer. So, what brings you to Nibelheim?"
       "I was wondering if you could hire me, sir. I'm sorry I had to meet you under these circumstances-- I didn't mean to do any harm to the Reactor…"
       Reeve nodded. "I'll think about it. May I call Ester or Dio at the Gold Saucer as references?"
       "Go right ahead, if you need to sir."
       "Are you staying at the inn?"
       "Yes sir."
       "Have them bill your room to me, and I'll get back to you within the next few days."
       "Yes sir! Thank you sir!"
       They shook hands and parted ways. As he headed back to the Mansion, Reeve gave Rude his copy of the printout, who raised an eyebrow upon reading the message. In the meantime, Saber left the Mansion's front gate and walked back to the inn.
       Reeve slid Elena's printout under the door to her room, then retreated back down the long staircase to the basement. He gazed at the bookshelves, thinking that the memory he had misplaced might be recovered through one of the library's massive volumes. One by one he pulled books off the shelves and flipped through them, hoping to find something. Eventually, he found what he needed in an old notebook of Bugenhagen's. It was a rough drawing of an astronomical device, accompanied with scribbled notes and mathematical formulas. In the lower-right corner of the page, a single word was clearly written out in block letters: "IVALICE". Reeve broke out into joyous laughter upon making this discovery; "'Ivalice', of course!"
       He put the book away and rushed to his desk, immediately turning on his laptop to begin work on a new electronic message:

       BlueJay,
       I know how we can get Cloud Strife back…

---

Completed June 2002 | Revised January 2003 | Copyright 2002-2003, The Blue Shinra Project.

When Sephiroth9611 made the simple post detailing, in a single sentence, Sephiroth's return, it transformed the roleplay. For this chapter, thanks go out to him, as well as to BlueJay for bringing in the Final Fantasy Tactics references (some of which were embellished by yours truly ^_~). Extra special thanks goes out to Tactical Retreat; without their tips, I could've never brought Cloud into the land of Ivalice.

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