Once again, Cloud wishes for some stairs.
But he’s not the first to get here. He’s not even the second – tour guide Cloud has somehow passed him on the road. Her father got here even before her. Good grief, Cloud, how slow ARE you??
Yes, that’s who we’re after.
Pretty safe bet. He’s already burned down the village and hacked up several villagers. That Cloud doesn’t know about this suggests she wasn’t there – maybe she didn’t teleport here after all.
She still hasn’t noticed that Cloud is standing there.
Aha. We have Cloud’s motivation at last – she’s bombing reactors and fighting Shinra because she blames them for her father’s death. But still, some autonomy would be good. Instead she’s been happy to take orders from the other Clouds.
Cloud runs into the next chamber, where Sephiroth is talking to a door.
Cloud has picked up Sephiroth’s abandoned sword – careless of you to leave that behind, Sephie.
There’s a brief tussle…
…in which Sephiroth takes his sword back…
…and sends Cloud flying with a vicious swipe. That blow cripples dragons – our guide should be in two pieces by now.
Cloud falls in slow motion to the foot of the stairs.
Our other Cloud runs in to find her there…
…while, up above, the door to Jenova opens.
Cloud goes to help Cloud. There you go, my dear. He did remember his promise.
Cloud gathers up his fallen friend…
…and drops her out of the way. Huh. Go ahead and bleed to death, but not on the stairway.
Cloud is far more interested in facing his mad boss.
Inside the final room is an impressive angel statue. Is this… Jenova?
Sephiroth stands in awe of his mother.
You’re talking to a statue, dude.
Great idea! Does that mean you know where it is, what it is and how to get there? Care to tell the rest of us? Of course, this might be why Shinra and our party are all following him now. If anyone knows how to get there, Sephie does.
Cloud arrives.
He’s a bit narked.
Sephiroth laughs. A weakling trainee, up against the mighty Sephiroth.
Mother should have been in charge. Instead, she ended up buried in a rock formation for two thousand years.
But it wasn’t her fault, of course.
You mean, humans?
…no, we’re really not.
Yay! Happy families!
Sephiroth reaches out lovingly towards his mother’s face…
…and rips off her torso. But of course, this isn’t really mother.
The real Jenova is hidden behind the angel, preserved in a glass tank like a Damien Hirst sculpture.
It’s the same thing as the one in Shinra HQ, with two notable differences. First, there aren’t any eyeballs growing in anatomically awkward places. Second, and more importantly, this one has a head.
Cloud, having been ignored for the last several screens, demands acknowledgement. To be fair, Sephiroth, you did just kill an entire village.
I’d argue this is much more sad than Sephiroth’s situation. He’s just found the mother he’d never met. Yours has been burned, possibly alive, in her own house.
Sephiroth actually agrees. It’s all happy days for him now. All these irritating people getting in his way every day, and now he’s discovered he can just kill them all. Who wouldn’t?
But it’s better than that. His mother is the rightful ruler of the planet, so he’s now a prince. And since she’s largely confined to a glass tank, he’s the de facto ruler of the world in her place.
Mother demands. Sephiroth obeys. And it’s going to be such fun. I’m quite jealous.
Cloud realises he’s lost a friend (well, a war buddy).
But to hell with it! Who cares that he’s only a Level 1 trainee with one single piece of worthless materia. How hard can it be to take out Sephiroth?
…a Level 50 badass who yawns at the thought of fighting another dragon, dismisses flocks of hostile wildlife with a wave of his hand and can apparently lug an enormous bulk like Jenova out of Shinra HQ without breaking a sweat?
An epic, impossible battle is about to unfold…
…and doesn’t.
Big Cloud feels gypped. He’s not the only one.
Cloud’s memories, patchy as they were in regards to his mother, were very clear up to this point. And then, at the critical moment… nothing.
Indeed. What happened? We’ve spent the last eight instalments of Crowd of Clouds on this epic tale of Sephiroth’s back story, and at the most critical point you just stop?!
Ugh, fine. Let’s get on with the quest. The sooner we get moving, the sooner we can catch up to Sephiroth and ask him what happened…
Crowd of Clouds 