Heart of the Warrior

Chapter 3 - The Raid

I do not own Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy XIII, the Final Fantasy series or any official characters featured within this project. The Final Fantasy series is owned by Square-Enix, Hiranobu Sakaguchi, and Tetsuya Nomura. Please support the official release.

Bodies...six bodies drenched in the overpowering stench of blood; among them were the bodies of a bronze skinned woman and two kids: a red-haired girl and blond boy. Confused and horrified, Cloud turned to run from them only to find the blood-soaked bodies of the bush pilot he'd met on Spira, Snow and Lightning. Unable to face them anymore than the other three, Cloud turned tail as quickly as possible only to be halted by the mangled, standing corpses of the first three.

"Why'd you do it?" asked the woman behind a heavily slashed face and a heavy accent, "Why'd you let him kill us?"

"We trusted you" said the girl with the same accent but a deep stab wound was visible through the center of her stomach.

"But you didn't care," said the boy, a long slash across his chest "You ran away and left us all to die!"

"No!" Cloud mumbled, aghast.

"You're supposed to be the hero," came a voice from behind. Cloud turned sharply to find the other three, standing and equally mangled.

"Why didn't you save us, huh hero?" barked the slashed and bloodstained body of the bush pilot.

"Heroes never run away" grunted Snow holding his blood soaked chest "Are you really who you say you are, or are you just a fraud?"

Staring, terrified, at each of them, Cloud made eye contact with Lightning's body (also heavily slashed) and spluttered "NO, I—THIS W-WASN'T SUPPOSED TO---" but all that Lightning said, with clear disgust in her voice, was

"We trusted you."

"We trusted you, We trusted you" the six of them began to chant.

Cloud watched in horror as their voices began melding together in a deafening echo.

"No, I didn't mean to kill you, none of you were supposed to die," whimpered Cloud, trying to calm and appease them but they only chanted louder: "WE TRUSTED YOU, WE TRUSTED YOU!"

He slapped his hands over his ears, closing his eyes and crumpled to his knees; "WE TRUSTED YOU, WE TRUSTED YOU!!"

"NO!!" Cloud screamed at the top of his lungs. Suddenly, everything had gone absolutely still; opening his eyes and removing his hands, breathing heavily, Cloud found all six of them (still encircling him) but back on the ground, dead just he'd found them. Suddenly, a single black feather came floating slowly to the ground; Cloud followed it with wide, terrified Mako eyes. Looking upward, he saw the silver-haired SOLDIER, wing extended and long sword stained scarlet. He was smiling at Cloud, an evil smile and vengeful Mako green eyes.

"NO!!"

His eyelids popping open and he shot upward, only to find his dark, silent bedroom. Still breathing heavily, Cloud dragged a hand down his sweaty face,

"A dream," he said calmingly "Only a dream."

However, the words weren't as comforting as he pretended that they were; he searched his memory banks as best that he could, but finally concluded that he didn't know the bronze skinned woman or either of the kids. However, he was truly troubled by the bodies of an innocent bush pilot, one of his own soldiers and a civilian. Plopping his head back onto his pillow, Cloud turned to his clock: it was four in the morning; he sighed deeply, there would be no going back to sleep now. Having fallen asleep in his uniform again, he climbed out of bed and wandered aimlessly into the pitch black living room.