Despite the rough initial ride from Midgar to Kalm, Elena's mount Gau was incredibly well-behaved once they left her hometown toward their next destination of Icicle Inn. She was heading there on Rufus' orders, which he'd given to her the previous night, shortly after she'd shared a delicious dinner with her dad and brother. Although her family—what little of it she had—was sad to see her go so soon, they knew she had a job to do and bid her a heartfelt farewell. Elena returned their waves and well-wishes, then turned to face the road ahead, afraid that she'd break out into tears at any minute. It was only at that moment she realized just how homesick she really was.
         Fortunately, her moodiness passed as she guided Gau across the ocean to a beach at the southern end of a vast, and mostly forested, valley. A few red, bipedal dragons roamed the peninsula and small islands to her right, while before her lay what looked like a heap of giant fossils strung with tents. This was probably the "Bone Village" that the man she'd met the previous day had been talking about. The Shinra MPs that Rufus and Heidegger had assigned to her were already there waiting for her. Their mission was to accompany Elena to Icicle Inn, but before doing so, they first had to verify her prior report. Elena dismounted from her chocobo, wondering if the other Turks' reports had ever been subject to such scrutiny.
         The sergeant, a tall man in a dark red uniform, spotted Elena and marched up to her. "Good afternoon, ma'am."
         "Good afternoon. Have you and your men been waiting long?"
         "No ma'am. The Gelnika only dropped us off a little over an hour ago."
         Elena nodded. "What've you got to report?"
         "We interrogated the locals here. It seems as though Sephiroth did come through these parts, about two and a half days ago."
         "Anything else?"
         "They mentioned some other visitors—"
         "What? Who?"
         The sergeant shrugged. "I don't know. I figured I'd wait until you got here so you could handle it."
         "Lovely," Elena groaned. She walked up to a man who was sitting just outside the largest structure, which was partially made from the ribcage of a once great beast.
         "Welcome to Bone Village, miss. How may I help you?"
         "I'm from the Shinra Turks, and I need some information." Suddenly recalling her very first mission as a Turk, as well as Tseng's lecture in the sheep pasture, Elena quickly added, "That is, if it wouldn't be too much trouble."
         "It's no trouble at all," the man replied. "What would you like to know?"
         "My men here have told me that your camp has seen a lot of visitors lately. Can you tell me anything about them?"
         "Well, the first visitor was a young woman in a pink dress and short red jacket. She had the longest hair I'd ever seen at the time."
         From the description the man gave, this woman sounded like the escaped Ancient, Aeris. Elena continued the conversation; "What do you mean by 'at the time'?"
         "Because then a man showed up awhile later. He was very tall, and dressed almost entirely in black. He also had long grey hair. I don't know whose was longer—his or that girl's."
         Elena nodded. Sephiroth had come through here, all right. "I see. So there was a girl in pink, and a man in black."
         "Yeah. The girl was very sweet and polite, but the man was rather intimidating."
         "And the girl was alone? That's strange…"
         "You know who she is?"
         "Somewhat. She's—" Elena started, before recalling Tseng's other lecture back in the bar in Kalm. "She's an acquaintance."
         The man nodded. "You know, after the two of them had entered the woods, some other people came by."
         This was news to Elena. "Really? Who?"
         "A man with spiky blond hair, wearing a Shinra military uniform—SOLDIER, I believe. He was traveling with a teenage girl and a large moogle with a talking cat riding on top of it. Weirdest bunch I've ever seen."
         Cloud, Yuffie, and Cait Sith. "That does sound like a lot of visitors."
         "You're telling me! And there hasn't been anyone else until your boys here showed up. What's going on, anyway?"
         Elena shook her head. "I'm sorry, but I really can't say. Thanks a lot for your help!"
         "No problem. Now I suppose you all would like to dig up a Lunar Harp as well?"
         "A what?"
         "A Lunar Harp," the sergeant interrupted. "According to these guys, it's a device that was made by the Ancients to 'awaken' the Sleeping Forest here."
         Elena continued to focus on the man sitting before the tent. "Do we need one to get to Icicle Inn?"
         "The ski resort town? Nah, most people just ride there on mountain-crosser chocobos. You mean that you aren't going through the forest like those other people?"
         Elena shook her head. "We have work to do elsewhere. I'm sure we'll see them along the way, though."
         "I wouldn't be surprised if you do. Rumor has it that there's a cavern that opens up on the other side of this mountain range; maybe these friends of yours continued on via that route."
         "Maybe. Well, thanks again!"
         "No problem."
         Elena walked away from the camp and back toward the fields; along the way, she asked the sergeant to gather his men together. The sergeant did so, and Elena stood before them all, the large Shinra helicopter the Gelinka had left parked behind her on the grass.
         "Listen up! We've gathered enough information from here, so now we go on to the next phase of our mission. We're heading to Icicle Inn to make sure that no one—and I mean no one—gets in or out of that town."
         One of the MPs raised his hand; Elena pointed at him. "You have a question?"
         "Yes ma'am. Why, exactly, are we doing all this? What's the point of this mission? Does it have something to do with Sephiroth?"
         Elena replied, "I can only tell you this much: we must make sure the town is secure, so that no one tries to get to the glacier or the cliffs."
         A few of the men glanced at each other, as if in silent speculation about the true nature of the task at hand. Elena, on the other hand, was annoyed that she couldn't tell her men any more. She knew she had acted rashly in the past, but just when was the President going to trust her enough to give and receive sensitive information? How was she going to be able to prove herself? She sighed wearily.
         "All right. Now that the briefing's over, let's get ready to leave."

         The next morning, in Icicle Inn, Elena swallowed hard as she watched her men pull Cloud Strife out of the snow bank he had fallen into. Perhaps her specially trademarked punch had been a touch too special this time around, as she'd never punched a man—and certainly not one with such a lean, muscular physique as Cloud's—out cold with it before. Silently, she trailed behind the two MPs who carried Cloud into the first house they came upon, which, fortunately, happened to be abandoned. The MPs set Cloud down on the floor of the main room, a laboratory of some sort. They then filed past Elena as she stood by the doorway, staring at the young man she had felled. She closed the door behind her, leaving the two of them alone, then reached into her jacket and pulled out her pistol.
         "Cloud Strife must be stopped," Tseng had murmured during that horrible afternoon in the Temple of the Ancients. "I want you to avenge our friend's murder," Reno told her only a few days later. Yet when she pointed the gun at Cloud's head, she couldn't bring herself to pull the trigger. Not only would this be a cheap and cowardly way to kill her adversary, but she also had this feeling, coming from somewhere deep within her, that perhaps Cloud had been telling the truth, and that Sephiroth was the one who had killed Tseng. What few encounters she'd previously had with Cloud seemed to support this theory of him being trustworthy, especially that last one in Wutai, when he had joined forces with Reno and Rude to rescue her and Yuffie. But then, if that was the case, why did Tseng say what he said?
         "H'lo, Miss Elena."
         Startled, Elena swung her head in the direction of the voice, which was coming from the back of the laboratory, where she could just barely make out a staircase descending into the floor. A large, round being bounded up from below and started toward her; Elena recognized the form as Cait Sith. Immediately recalling all of the frustration she and the other Turks had gone through in order to track him down, she angrily swerved her gun around to point at Cait.
         "Where the hell've you been?" she yelled. "Do you have any idea what we've been going through to try and establish contact with you?"
         Cait laughed. "You can lower the pea-shooter, Miss Elena. It ain't gonna do ya much good, since I ain't flesh an' blood like you are."
         "You think I don't know that?" Elena barked back, refusing to lower her weapon. "Just answer my question, okay?"
         "I've been with Cloud and his friends, as usual."
         "Stop stating the obvious! You know what I mean—why haven't you tried to contact Reno? You do know what happened to Tseng, don't you?"
         "'Course I do. He died from the wound that Sephiroth gave him in the Temple of the Ancients." The cat lowered his head. "It's a shame, really…"
         Elena thought back on Cloud's words, again pondering the possibility that he'd been telling the truth. Meanwhile, Cait continued, "Anyway, whaddya wanna know? I'll tell ya whatever I can."
         "You can start with why you haven't contacted Reno or anyone else at Shinra."
         "Well, maybe I won't tell ya everything. Anything else?"
         Elena sighed. She figured she had no choice but to play along for the time being. "About the Ancient—Aeris. She went through the Sleeping Forest by herself. Later, Sephiroth followed, then Cloud, you, and that ninja girl."
         "Yeah. Aeris…" Cait paused.
         "You know something, don't you. C'mon, spit it out!"
         "Sephiroth killed her," he replied, his tone serious, "like he killed Tseng."
         Elena lowered her pistol. Cloud she couldn't entirely trust, but Cait Sith's controller was a fellow Shinra employee. Besides, neither of them would be going anywhere if she could help it. "There's just two more things I have to know, before I let you and Cloud go."
         "You're gonna do what?"
         Elena ignored Cait's reaction. "Have you seen Sephiroth since then?"
         "Cloud claimed to sense where he was headin' the morning after we left the… the forest. Since then, we've just been movin' forward."
         "I see. Well, your journey ends here. I don't care what you guys do, just as long as you don't go near the cliffs beyond this town."
         "But what about my mission? S'not like I can come out and say, 'Hey guys, maybe we should listen to the Shinra for once.' They'd suspect me for sure!"
         Elena looked at Cait and smiled pointedly. "If you'd only give Reno a call, I'm sure he'd be more than happy to supply you with whatever guidance you need. You have his PHS number, right?"
         "I, uh…" Cait lowered his head sheepishly. "I don't think so."
         Elena sighed wearily and tucked her pistol back in her jacket, replacing it with a pen and one of her business cards. Using a nearby table as a writing surface, she quickly scribbled Reno's number onto the back of the card and handed it to Cait Sith.
         "My own number's on the front. You shouldn't need it, but it's there in case you do."
         "Okay," Cait replied as he stared at the card, then tucked it away somewhere beneath his cape. "Thanks Miss Elena. Now ya wanted to ask me something else?"
         "Yeah. What happened to your old body, and how on earth did you get a new one?"
         Cait gave her an odd look. "What're you talking about?"
         "Don't play dumb with me. That mechanical body of yours doesn't have a digital serial number! I should know—I traced it myself."
         "That's weird. Are you sure your equipment wasn't broken?"
         "You mean to say that this is the same body you've had the whole time?"
         "Yep. I dunno much 'bout the inner workings of this thing, but maybe something wiped out the serial number while I was in the Temple of the Ancients. I saw a lot of strange stuff in there."
         Elena stared at Cait, unsure about whether or not to believe him. "Me too. But would any of it have caused such damage without your noticing?"
         Cait shrugged. "Too bad we can't go back in time and ask the Ancients 'bout it."
         Just then, on the floor of the lab, Elena noticed Cloud's leg twitch. She realized that he could come to at any time. Cait must've noticed it as well, because he whispered, "You should get outta here. I can't be seen with ya, so I'll leave a little while later."
         "Okay. I have work to do, anyway."
         Elena tiptoed over to the door and let herself out. Now she had to scout around all the town's checkpoints to make sure that everything was secure, then head back out to the small patch of land where the helicopter was parked to keep an eye out for the Highwind.

*****

         On a barren, windswept stretch of snow and ice stood a small mound of rock, which contained a cave. Inside of this cave was an old, battered tent that had originally been erected by long-gone explorers. As there was no other shelter for miles around, Zack found this cave to be a perfect place to collapse, allowing his weakened knees to finally give in to the forces of gravity.
         He lay face down on the cold, barren ground, not caring about the occasional gust of wind that blew in through the cave's entrance, nor the shiny blue Materia orb that lay within arm's reach, nor even the white patches of snow that clung to his cloak, boots, and hair. In fact, he couldn't bring himself to care about anything, especially these past few days.
         After all, he still couldn't believe that Jenova had been able to make him do that.
         Jenova had forced him to murder before, sure, but never like this. He never had as close a tie to their other victims as he had to this latest one. He had never loved any of their previous kills.
         Since that terrible day in the crystal-shielded castle beneath the City of the Ancients, Zack had become an emotional void, feeling nothing save for a newly-arisen desire to die. Life, he decided, just wasn't something he wanted to bother with any more.
         An indeterminate amount of time passed—it could've been minutes or hours—before Jenova addressed Zack. "Get up," she said to him, and him alone, in that familiar, whispering hiss of hers. "We have not yet reached our destination."
         Zack knew that if he didn't comply, then Jenova would just make him rise anyway. Still, he'd had enough willpower left to reduce the speed of their travel to a mere crawl, and Jenova had not at all been pleased with their recent lack of progress.
         "Do you not want to retrieve your memories?"
         "As if you'd give them back to me anyway, if you ever had them to begin with," Zack bitterly replied. "After the way you've used and deceived me, how can I trust you to keep your word?"
         "Very insightful of you, Zack."
         He did not need to look up to see who had spoken. It was Sephiroth, inhabiting the form of one of the black cloaked "clones", and at the moment, Zack heard him striding into the cave, coming to stop beside him.
         "Zack," Sephiroth said in a steady, even tone, "look at me."
         Zack did as he was told, lifting his head and turning it in the direction from which Sephiroth's voice had come. Sephiroth was hunched down, his arms resting across his upper legs.
         "What the hell do you want," Zack muttered.
         Sephiroth smiled, a hint of malice in his curled lips, as he pulled off his left glove with his right hand. "I want to give you something."
         Sephiroth reached out to Zack and gripped his chin with his bare left hand. Zack made no effort to struggle; whatever Sephiroth had planned for him couldn't be nearly as painful as certain other recent events. Sephiroth sharply pulled Zack's face sideways a few inches, so that their eyes met.
         "Look into my eyes, Zack. What do you see?"
         Zack's body twitched and winced as Jenova tried to yank him away from Sephiroth's grip, but the latter would not yield. He stared into Sephiroth's mako-tinged irises as his eyelids struggled to keep from closing, locked in a battle between the two wills imposed on them.
         Zack gasped. He saw flames.
         Images flooded into his mind. Nibelheim, with its charming, old-fashioned architecture, consumed in a raging fire. A first-person view of someone rushing from building to building, past an old but muscular man who was doing the same. He now entered the interior of a small house, which glowed orange from the fire engulfing it. A woman with familiar blonde hair was on the floor, flames licking at her body; she was already dead. The view swiveled around, leaving the house and wandering back into the street. A Shinra MP was lying off to his left, among other fallen victims. Five year-old words came to Zack's trembling lips as he lay in the present.
         "Terrible… Sephiroth… this is too terrible."
         At that moment, Jenova violently wrenched her captor free from Sephiroth's grasp, and Zack collapsed back to the ground.
         "You have seen enough, puppet!" she hissed.
         Sephiroth chuckled under his breath as he stood up. "Yes he has, for the time being. Zack, do you see now what a deceitful, lying Mother I have here? Don't you agree that godhood would be better suited to someone more benevolent?"
         With great effort, Zack lifted his head to reply, "You aren't talking about yourself, are you?"
         "But of course. Did you enjoy my little gift? Do you think that Cloud will like it?"
         Zack narrowed his eyes at Sephiroth. "Cloud? You mean he's lost his memory as well?"
         Sephiroth chuckled. "It's a bit more complicated than that. Apparently my chosen one, in all his delusions of grandeur, believes he is you. He honestly believes that he was the SOLDIER First Class who accompanied me on my final mission for Shinra. He is the thief of your memories."
         Zack pondered this for a moment. Sure, Cloud may have stolen his Buster Sword, but his very identity? The way Sephiroth described it, that didn't seem possible. However, there was that gap in his memory…
         Sephiroth continued, "With what little I have shown you, and what little you have discovered on your own, I will reveal the truth to Cloud. By doing so, I will erase the final traces of his memories and destroy his soul, creating a true puppet out of him. As the failure of the other clones is inevitable, he will be the one who will assist me, and ultimately enable me to summon the Calamity, Meteor."
         Jenova's voice rose to the surface. "I won't allow such a thing to come to pass! My puppet will not fail!"
         "Are you so sure about that, Mother?" Sephiroth replied, starting to pace around the cave. "Besides, you are now close to my personal domain, where my power is strongest. And while it is true that your power is also gathering with the Reunion, there is the matter of your chosen one, and the recent ordeal you put him through. Wouldn't you agree that it is far more advantageous to have your puppet witness the death of its friend at the hands of the one it regards as its foe, rather than to force the puppet to kill its friend itself? Cloud's vengeance has grown, which will, of course, only draw him closer to me. For accomplishing what Cloud could not, for killing that Cetra girl before his eyes, I have you to thank."
         As Zack felt his stomach turn, Jenova remained silent, a sure sign that she was just starting to bristle with fury. Reluctantly thinking over Sephiroth's words, Zack realized that he was right; Cloud now had far more incentive to pursue Sephiroth or Jenova than he did. This made Zack think back on the aftermath of the latest murder, and how Cloud cradled the limp body in his arms. If it was true that Cloud believed that he was, to some degree, Zack, then did that include Zack's feelings toward Aeris? Naturally, it wasn't something he wanted to think about.
         "I have to be on my way," Sephiroth said. "The Reunion must continue on to its conclusion." With that, Zack watched as Sephiroth pulled the hood of his cloak over his head and disappeared out into the whirling blizzard. Zack continued laying on the cold ground, thinking over the various things Sephiroth had told him and Jenova. He wondered where this was all leading, and if either of these two evil beings would succeed in their shadowy plans. Briefly thinking back on the past Sephiroth had offered him a brief glimpse of, Zack's thoughts turned to Nibelheim, and his last visit there. He remembered a stack of photos, but for some reason, couldn't recall the one that had first caught his eye. He knew it was from five years ago, and had to do with him, but beyond that, he wasn't able to picture it at all.
         Then, Zack recalled something Sephiroth had said earlier: "With what little I have shown you, and what little you have discovered on your own, I will reveal the truth to Cloud." What little you have discovered on your own…
         Zack sighed wearily. In exchange for the fragment of memory Sephiroth had afforded him, a more recent one had been taken as a form of payment.

         Jenova pushed Zack onward through the cold wasteland to the even colder cliffs, not bothering to stop anywhere along the way. Zack climbed the frozen, rocky surface and navigated through caves of ice until they came to the very top. Great whirlwinds of glowing green liquid swirled about the center of the gigantic crater upon which Zack now stood on the edge of. It was certainly one of the most amazing things he had ever seen, but he was not allowed to gaze upon it for long, as Jenova pressed him forward, toward the whirling walls of wind and mako.
         Zack swallowed hard as he climbed down into the crater. He knew that Sephiroth was somewhere ahead of them, and it filled him with both dread and nervous anticipation. Walking amongst him were the clones, more of them now than ever, yet many stumbled along the way. When one did, Jenova would direct Zack to tip the Masamune to the prone body; the sword would shimmer as Jenova collected her cells, and the fallen clone would be left to die. Zack thought of the clones that were still following from behind and wondered if Jenova intended to collect her cells from all of them, but at the moment, it just seemed as if she wanted to be as strong as possible.
         They passed through two walls of wind, encountering even more felled clones along the way. Then, Zack stopped in his tracks.
         "I don't know if I can do this."
         "You must continue forward, for it is what I will of you."
         "No." Drawing from all his willpower, Zack slashed at two nearby clones, sending them over the edge of the rock and into the shimmering pools of green liquid below. "I won't let you or Sephiroth bring forth this Calamity of yours. I won't let anyone else die!"
         Jenova said nothing, seemingly taken aback by his action. Even Zack himself was a little stunned that he was able to do such a thing. What was it that enabled him to stop and lash out like that? Was it all this mako?
         "Our journey together ends here."
         "What? What do you mean?"
         From behind him, Zack heard three sets of footsteps, all markedly different from the distinctive shuffle of the clones.
         "I have no need of you any more."

         Zack did not open his eyes. He lay where he was, thinking about what happened once Jenova left him and latched herself onto a black-cloaked clone that had just happened to be passing by. As Zack lay dying on the flat top of the rocky outcropping Jenova had teleported them to, she transformed the other clone into Sephiroth and, much to her delight, drew out the Black Materia from the folds of the clone's cloak.
         "So this was the one," she murmured out loud. "The puppet that carried what I have long sought."
         The last thing Zack saw was "Sephiroth" leaping down upon the three whose footsteps they had heard earlier—Cloud and two of his friends. Feeling weak and helpless, Zack decided that he didn't want to see any more and closed his eyes, waiting for the inevitable.
         Finally, he fell into a deep sleep, the type which none ever expects to wake from. Some amount of time had passed, though it was never clear how much, when he was stirred into consciousness by a voice he hadn't heard in ages.
         "It's been a long time, Zachary Winfield—five years, if I'm not mistaken. Wake up. We've got work to do."