Chapter Text
Leon groaned as he struggled to regain his bearings.
“You alive over there, Leonhart?”
“Somehow,” Leon grunted, managing to push himself up onto his hands and knees. His head was killing him. “Fuck…”
He heard a soft huff of breath as the damn blond laughed at him. Bastard was probably already back on his feet. Stupid SOLDIERs and their enhanced physicality.
“Yeah. “Fuck” sums things up nicely,” his companion hummed.
Leon finally managed to regain his feet, swaying slightly before a firm hand steadied him.
“Easy. Don’t push yourself. Traveling across realities and through the lifestream is a bitch, especially if you’re not used to it. Sora, Riku and Aerith - both of them - did warn you when you agreed to come here.”
Leon just grunted, trusting the other man not to drop him on his ass while he regained his equilibrium. Eventually he managed to steady himself and pry his eyes open beyond the squint he’d had them in since arriving. All that he could see was hilly grassland; although, he could hear the roar of the ocean and smell the salt of the sea in the air.
“Where are we?”
“The Grasslands,” the other man said as if that meant anything to Leon beyond a description of their surroundings. “If we’re lucky, we didn’t end up that far from Kalm.”
“Thought you knew this place pretty well, Strife,” Leon grunted. “Wasn’t that the whole reason you decided to join me in this shit show despite everyone else saying that you shouldn’t? Do any of them even know you joined me at the last minute?”
“At present there are no landmarks for me to distinguish one stretch of plains and hills from another,” Cloud said dryly. “And you know why I came here even though Aerith and the others hadn’t wanted me to. I wasn’t about to let you face this without proper backup, and we both know why we couldn’t leave that to any of the key bearers no matter how much they tried to reason their way into coming.”
Leon hummed, acknowledging his point without verbalizing it and noting the fact that Cloud had chosen not to answer Leon’s last question. Clearly no one had been informed that Cloud had joined Leon on this adventure. He could only imagine the reaction when those they’d left back in Radiant Garden realized that Cloud hadn’t just pulled his usual disappearing act. Leon’s heart squeezed tightly at the thought of them - especially his daughter. He would miss her especially, but she was an adult now. So were Sora and the others. They didn’t need him anymore…
“...Do you regret it? Coming here?” Cloud asked, voice low and barely above a whisper.
“We just got here and you’re already asking me that?” Leon huffed, shoulder checking the slightly shorter man before stepping forward without assistance. His footing was steady now. Good. “We haven't even done anything or gone anywhere yet.”
“Doesn’t mean-”
“Cloud,” Leon huffed, turning to face the other. He took in the man’s stiff posture, the slight pinch in his brow and the downturn of his lips. “There’s no going back. I knew this when I agreed to help the other Aerith, Aeris. You knew this when you decided to ignore both of their requests and you joined me anyway. This world- this reality - needs help. With the end of Organization XIII, Sora’s return and the peace that’s been established in Radiant Garden and the other worlds… there was no need for men like me there… for men like us. We’re mercs. Peace is nice - great even - but… I miss the fight, just like you do. There’s only so much you can get out of fighting in the tournaments at the Colosseum. There’s only so much extra work, so many odd jobs, so many favors… work that anyone can do before you feel like you’re not making much of a difference anymore. Before you start to feel like you’re… not necessary. When you realize that you’re not really needed around to keep the peace when there are so many others doing just that.”
“Funny. You seemed to be doing that a whole lot better than me,” Cloud drawled. “Radiant Garden flourished while you were mayor.”
“You know I hated that job,” Leon scoffed. “Way too much paperwork.”
“But you were good at it,” Cloud reasoned. “People looked up to you. Respected you. …Needed you.”
“Cloud,” Leon sighed. “Sure, I was good at it. It was part of my SEED leadership training. I was the Commander of Balam Garden before… Before. I knew that job. I was good at it. Being mayor for a couple of terms was not very different. There was just less combat. My skills only stayed sharp because of spars with you, Yuffie, Tifa and the key bladers. It wasn’t the same. And just because you’re good at something doesn’t mean that you enjoy it.”
Leon raised a brow at Cloud.
“Fair enough,” Cloud grimaced and had the decency to give an acknowledging nod. “But you know that the others will miss you just as much as they’ll miss me, don’t you? And your daughter…”
“I know,” Leon said softly, “We’ve been friends long enough, but leaving… it was different for me than it was for you. I don’t have the same history with them that you do. The people who I did know… before the heartless… They no longer exist. Selphie… Kairi’s friend on Destiny Islands is not the one I knew. Neither is the Seifer in Twilight Town. They’re just kids - well, not anymore, but they’re still not the same. Sora and the others helped me look but… none of them are anywhere to be found on any world in our reality…”
“So? It’s not like they’ll turn up in this one. And even if they did, they’d be just like Selphie and Seifer. They’d belong to this world in this reality,” Cloud reasoned.
“I am well aware of that,” Leon huffed. “But coming here… it’s my choice. It wasn’t a freak incident or the result of some calamity. It is because of a decision that I made on my own terms. For a long time now… I haven’t really felt in control of my life. I’ve just stumbled along the path, dealing with the hand fate dealt me. I lost all of my old friends… my family. And while I found new ones in Aerith, Yuffie, Cid and the others for a time… it wasn’t the same. I was no longer the same person that I used to be. And for a while… that was okay. I was still growing up. I was still figuring out who I was as a person. I wasn't Squall anymore. I felt like I couldn’t be after the fall of my world, so I tried to figure out who I was and became Leon, a person I thought I wanted to be.”
Cloud remained silent, but his gaze was focused on Leon.
“It’s not that I disliked our life in Radiant Garden - far from it. It was home. I had friends I could rely on again. I had a daughter. And for a time that was enough - especially after I took Marlene in. But Leon Leonhart of Radiant Garden isn’t who I am no matter how much I wanted him to be. I’m not good at settling. While I don’t mind being a leader… while I’m not bad at it… I don’t think civilian life really suits me. I want to travel. I want to see other lands. And hearing about Sora and the other’s adventures on other worlds… And after Marlene found out she could wield a keyblade and left to train under Kairi…”
“It made you want to go out too, and you couldn’t do that as mayor of Radiant Garden,” Cloud mused.
Leon hummed, nodding.
“Sora and the others grew up a while ago,” he sighed. “And Marlene is all grown up and going off on adventures of her own. Since she left to earn her mastery, the urge to leave - to travel - has only gotten stronger. With her departure and peace well established, nothing has really been tying me to Radiant Garden anymore.”
Cloud nodded back, striding past Leon a few steps further.
“Well, no time like the present to start traveling. Shall we?”
“Yeah,” Leon sighed, a small smile tugging at his lips. “Let’s. And Cloud?”
The blond quirked an eyebrow.
“You can call me Squall from now on.”
Cloud rolled his eyes before turning back around to continue onwards.
“Like I ever called you anything else, Leonhart. Seriously. Leon Leonhart was such a stupid name to go by. If you were going to change your first name, you should have changed the last one too.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Squall huffed shoulder checking the blond when he caught up. “Speaking of name changes, what are you going to go by? With another younger version of you running around, you might want to think of something.”
“Maybe I’ll go by Leon.”
“You just said it was a stupid name!”
“I said Leon Leonhart as a whole was a stupid name.”
“Whatever. Think of something else, Strife.”
“Better not call me that if that’s not going to be my name anymore.”
“Then pick something. Otherwise I’m just gonna call you Chocobo-head.”
Squall got shoved hard enough to make him stumble.
“Give me time to come up with something, asshole,” Cloud scoffed. “I’ll think of something by the time we reach Kalm.”
“Whatever,” Squall said, suppressing a smile.
The pair continued walking until they came upon a rocky outcrop of cliffs overlooking the ocean. From there, Cloud apparently figured out which way they needed to go to reach the town of Kalm and quickly put them on a faded path that led them across a bridge over a river and along a line of large blue pipes that continued through the countryside.
“Mako pipes,” Cloud informed Squall when they first came across them. “Moves mako energy pumped in Midgar to the outlying towns like Kalm. They go as far as Junon in the Southeast.”
It wasn’t long afterwards that the walled town of Kalm came into view, but it was another hour before they finally reached the main gate to enter. It was a nice town, bigger than what Squall had been expecting to be honest. It reminded him a bit of Radiant Garden with all of the greenery and flowers all around, but it also reminded him of the one time he’d taken a trip with Sora and Roxas to Twilight Town.
“This place is nice,” he mused, following Cloud down the cobbled streets.
“...It’s a little bigger than I remember…” Cloud mused, frowning slightly. “I don’t remember a clocktower.”
“That a problem?” Squall asked.
“No… but this reality may have some differences from the world I once knew.”
“We’ll adapt. Deal with these things as they come,” Squall reassured his friend. It made little difference to him in the grand scheme of things. Everything in this world was new to him.
Thankfully the inn Cloud had in mind for them to stay at was easily located. The innkeeper, Broden, was a kind man who’d been running the place for the last ten years. He was clearly sick, but neither Squall nor Cloud brought it up until they were alone in the room they’d paid for the night.
“Was he…?”
“Degradation,” Cloud confirmed grimly. “Early symptoms too. He must have only been Third Class before leaving to make it so long before showing signs like that.”
“Hopefully we can help him and others with degradation if all goes well,” Squall sighed, fiddling with his Griever pendant. “We’ve just got to find one of those lifesprings that Aeris spoke about.”
“You think you’re up for that? Synthesizing pure water from the lifestream, I mean?” Cloud asked.
“Won’t know until I try,” Squall sighed. “I at least have practice with synthesizing items thanks to working with the Moogles back in Radiant Garden. If not, I’m sure Aeris will help me out somehow since she’s supposed to be in the lifestream itself.”
Cloud hummed, his brow pinching in discontent.
When King Mickey, Merlin and Yen Sid had come to Radiant Garden with this mission request, Cloud hadn’t taken the news of another version of Aerith dying well. (None of them had, really.) From what they’d come to understand, Aeris had become a powerful spiritual force after her death that could still influence the world through manipulation of the lifestream. It was a fate that could have easily befallen the Aerith they knew had Cloud’s world not fallen into darkness as it was consumed by the Heartless while he and his friends were inside the Temple of the Ancients.
“So…” Squall mused, trying to move the conversation along. He trailed off awkwardly for a moment before smirking as a thought occurred to him. “You come up with a name for yourself, yet?”
“...Feist DuLoc,” Cloud answered after a moment. “You can just call me Fei (Fah-ee), though.”
Squall blinked, rolling the name around in his head before snorting.
“Did you just mix up the letters in your name to get that?”
“Shut up,” Cloud huffed, the tips of his ears actually turning pink. “It’s still better than Leon Leonhart, Squall .”
“Sure,” Squall chuckled. “If you’re from Merlin’s home world. I noticed that you dropped the “r” in Strife. Did it not fit nicely anywhere in your new name? It could be your middle initial. Feist R DuLoc. …On second thought, I can see why you’d exclude it. Some might mistake your name as “Fister.””
Cloud actually picked up a pillow from the bed he’d claimed and chucked it at Squall’s head. Squall grinned, snatching the pillow out of the air before it could hit him and lightly tossed it onto the bed he’d claimed during their stay.
“Thanks for the extra pillow,” he snarked before spinning on his heel to head out the door. “Let’s see what Kalm has to offer. We still don’t know when in your past the lifestream dumped us in this reality.”
He heard Cloud huff behind him, but a moment later the sound of heavy footfalls told Squall that the other man was following him out.
Kalm was a beautiful town. There were nice little cafes and eateries along the canal that ran through the east side of town. Flowers were in bloom everywhere in flower beds, hanging baskets and window boxes along every terrace and pathway around town. Kalm wasn’t huge by any means (only a quarter of Radiant Garden’s main city center excluding the castle and its sprawling palace grounds), but it was well populated and its many tiers and levels made the place feel larger. The locals were friendly - clearly used to travelers - and were very willing to give directions or recommend local attractions like the clock tower, the bookstore, the weapons shop, and the pub.
They ended up going to Maghnata Books first, hoping to purchase a newspaper or something to tell them the date. Cloud’s memory of his time in Midgar wasn’t the clearest. Thankfully, Tifa and Aerith had supplied Squall with a timeline of events as they remembered it. To be honest, the shop was a bit of a disappointment. While there was a wall of bookshelves and some piles stacked here and there, the store actually seemed more catered to magic than literature. While they were there, though, Squall was able to find a couple books (field guides, really) on the area and a brief summary of the region's history.
Selvacarsa Weapons was pretty basic as far as weapon shops went, but they were able to acquire the tools to help them with the upkeep of their weapons. Squall knew that he’d have to make his own ammo for his gunblade since it was a unique weapon. Thankfully he kept Revolver in good condition and had learned a long time ago how to maintain and fix it and its interchangeable parts in addition to crafting his own ammo. It was a skill he’d been especially grateful for after his world fell to the heartless. Cloud had it somewhat easier since his main weapon was a sword (many swords actually), but even he had to make sure that First Tsurugi could still fuse together seamlessly in addition to keeping each individual part sharp and functional.
After hitting up the necessary shops and stalls for other supplies, Cloud and Squall headed to The Rusty Arrow pub for dinner and some drinks. When they returned to the inn, Cloud spent the evening catching Squall up on things he should know about how things worked in Midgar and the world in general. The thing Squall found himself focusing on was the use of Materia. It was annoying that magic appeared to work differently in some worlds. The magic that Squall had gotten so used to in Traverse Town and Radiant Garden was different from the use of Guardian Forces that he’d used in his original home world. Here in this reality (and Cloud’s original home world) people used Materia to cast magic. Thankfully, Cloud had come with mastered Materia from his original home world and some orbs were gifted to Squall by Aerith and Tifa. Yuffie had been upset to learn that they’d hidden their existence from her and the ninja had tried to steal the jewel-like spheres the night before their departure. She’d failed because Cloud had been expecting her to do something like that and had foiled all of her attempts. Honestly, Squall was lucky he’d gotten any sleep the night before they’d left their reality.
“So,” Squall sighed as they turned in for the night, Cloud choosing to sit up for a bit and read the newspaper they’d purchased at the bookstore. “Have you figured out when we are in relation to your past?”
“...From what I can tell, it’s been about four years since Sephiroth went crazy and burned down and slaughtered the residents of my hometown. We’ve arrived roughly around the time Zack and I escaped from Hojo’s lab under the Nibelheim manor. We’ve either just escaped or will escape in the very near future,” Cloud muttered.
“So it’ll be about a year before your younger self and Fair make it to Midgar,” Squall mused. “Do you want to try to intercept them before they get this far or wait it out and hope we can find them before Shinra does?”
“...It might be better to wait,” Cloud sighed. “There’s no guarantee we’ll be able to find them before they make it to the wastes outside Midgar. I don’t remember anything about the route Zack took us on. The only concrete location I remember is that plateau Zack had his final stand on before…”
“…So we keep an eye on the area in case things happen differently and they arrive sooner than we’re expecting,” Squall noted. “What do you want to do in the meantime? We could always go check out the state of the Midgar slums. Tifa would have set up the original Seventh Heaven in Sector 7 by now, right?”
“Yeah,” Cloud sighed. “Barret and his group would still be working with the main Avalanche cell in Midgar as well. According to Tifa, they didn’t split from the main cell until a couple of months before I showed up in Midgar. There’s also Aerith in Sector 5, but she’s got the Turks keeping an eye on her. …We don’t necessarily need to set up in Midgar, you know. I wouldn’t mind keeping a base of sorts here in Kalm.”
“True,” Squall mused. “None of the lifesprings are in Midgar anyway.”
“We could just travel, touring the continent,” Cloud suggested. “It’ll take time for Zack to drag my younger self’s catatonic body from Neibleheim to somewhere that’ll give them passage across the sea.”
“I’d like that,” Squall admitted. “See a bit of what this world has to offer. It’ll give me time to figure out how Materia works. We could pick up the occasional job here and there too.”
“Mercs for hire,” Cloud huffed, flashing Squall a quick smirk.
“If we get familiar enough with the travel routes, we could always start up your delivery service,” Squall mused. “Can’t call it Strife Speedy Delivery though.”
“...Lion and Wolf: Swords and Wheels,” Cloud offered. “We can handle any job and deliver any package for the right price.”
Squall hummed. “Not bad. We can be a kind of Jack of all Trades service. Perhaps we can have a route between Midgar, Kalm, and Junon. If people from all around the continent are used to our faces popping up, no one will think twice about us coming and going…”
Squall paused when he noticed Cloud rubbing at his forehead.
“Cloud?”
“I’m fine. …Just remembered… Zack wanted to do something like that once we reached Midgar… he never got the chance…” the blond muttered.
“He will this time,” Squall said softly. “We’ll make sure of it. He may not be your Zack… but we can make a difference and save this one.”
“Right,” Cloud sighed before smirking at Squall. “Better stop calling me Cloud or Strife, Squall. I’m Fei DuLoc now, remember? Don’t want to confuse the other me when the time comes.”
“Right, sorry,” Squall sighed. “That’ll take some getting used to.”
Cloud shrugged. “Better get some sleep. We can figure out travel plans in the morning.”
“Right. Night, Cl- Fei.”
“Night, Squall.”