He had always moved alone.
What was his true purpose? Almost no one knew.
But there was one thing anyone could see: everything he had gone through had been terrifying.
Again and again, he had survived situations that should have offered no way out.
In those lethal traps, he could have left on his own.
Instead, he chose to help the believers who had fallen into despair alongside him.
He moved the nest of monsters known as the Tyranids away, preventing every living thing on that planet from being devoured.
Then, to keep the planet from being subjected to Exterminatus, he helped fight his way into the mouth of a passage leading to Hell itself, making enemies of daemons and traitors who had fallen into that Hell.
Actions like that could only be called heroic.
And yet, in some people's eyes, those same actions marked him as a heretic. He was persecuted by his own side.
So he fought back.
In another world, he brought hope to a civilization ravaged by a bio-crisis—the hope called Panacea—allowing humanity there to rebuild.
In another world, he prevented dangerous supertechnology from falling into the hands of evil forces and kept that world from descending into even greater chaos.
In another world, he gave the androids a kind "lie," one that kept them from breaking down and gave a newly born race an entirely new future.
In another world, he prevented a colony satellite with hundreds of thousands of people from being destroyed. With his help, one country would become a third force capable of balancing the other two sides, preventing their war from intensifying any further.
After returning to his own world, he was dragged into a war between supernatural organizations.
And in the end, to keep mankind's million worlds and countless planets from being gnawed clean by the insects, he activated a weapon at the cost of his own life.
Though he later survived, he must have felt death itself. No one liked the feeling of dying.
Pressing that button had to have been an unbearably heavy decision for him, because that weapon would cover his own side as well.
After accomplishing such a heroic feat, he left in silence. The Imperium would not publicize his deed as an act of bravery.
He had only just escaped that terrible situation, yet he immediately crossed the dimensional barrier and came to her world to save her.
When he first arrived, he saved her once. When she nearly fell from a height of dozens of meters and faced death again, he saved her a second time.
When the Whispers tangled around them and he tried to take her away, he must have been risking his life then, too. That made it the third time he had saved her.
After that, it had been her turn to repay him.
She had awakened him.
But to Aerith, that was nowhere near enough to repay what he had done.
So, was someone like him a hero?
If a person like that was not a hero, then who could possibly deserve the word?
In Aerith's eyes, he was one.
He was handsome, and when his deeds were added on top of that, Aerith did not think any normal girl could withstand that kind of attraction.
Surely, they would all have the same fantasy—that they might fall in love with someone like him.
If a girl had no such thought at all, it usually meant her heart already belonged to someone else.
As for Aerith, she was certain that she had fallen for him.
In truth, Aerith had once had a first love when she was seventeen. She had liked someone—Zack Fair.
But before their relationship could progress very far, Zack disappeared. None of the letters she sent him ever received a reply.
In the end, one year ago, Aerith decided to let that romance go.
Now, of course, she knew the truth behind Zack's disappearance: Shinra had imprisoned him and used him for experiments. Cloud had suffered the same fate, imprisoned and experimented on as well.
Afterward, Zack and Cloud escaped together. They were lucky enough to be caught in the field Kain unleashed on the very day he had nearly become a god, and that was how they survived.
Within the area covered by that field, all evil people judged as wicked were erased by Kain. Because of that, Zack and Cloud also managed to avoid being hunted down.
Then, if Zack was still alive, would Aerith's actions toward Kain not become terribly awkward?
Would she not be trapped in a dilemma?
No.
Because choosing not to continue that relationship was a choice she had already made.
Even if that choice meant she and Kain would spend most of their future separated by the distance between two worlds—or even by a distance that might become permanent—Aerith would not regret it. It was a decision she would never change again.
As for Zack, there was also a girl who liked him. It was thanks to that girl's secret help that Zack had managed to escape.
That girl had truly given a great deal for Zack. She had even confessed to him, leaving him at a complete loss.
So Aerith went to Zack and told him that she was dumping him.
That way, everyone was better off. It was not too hypocritical, at least.
Now that her own problem had been handled, she wondered what Tifa would do.
Tifa was kind. She was not the type to take the initiative, especially when she liked the same person as Aerith. In that case, Tifa would hide her feelings even more carefully.
But Aerith did not want Tifa to keep giving way like that.
So she decided they could simply both become Kain's girlfriends.
If Tifa was by her side, if they were on the same team, then when the girls from other worlds who had subtle relationships with Kain eventually met them, Aerith would not get bullied.
That was the reason Aerith used to pull Tifa into her faction.
As for why Aerith knew Kain had subtle relationships with girls from other worlds, she could tell from the footage Tifa had downloaded. Some of the girls clearly had feelings for him.
After all, Kain was that kind of "hero." Any normal girl would have her heart stirred.
Most importantly, when she went to the temple with Kain, Aerith had asked him directly whether he had that sort of ambiguous relationship with girls from other worlds.
Kain had not hidden anything in his answer.
So in a certain sense, Kain was a "bad guy" too—a womanizing bad guy.
"Tifa, how did it go?"
When Aerith saw Tifa return, she immediately stepped forward and asked.
"Huh? What do you mean?"
"I mean, did you make things clear with Mr. Cloud? You can't let someone think he still has a chance and end up wasting his time."
"I—I think I made it clear."
Tifa answered with a faintly embarrassed, fidgety air.
That should have counted as a very clear answer.
She had told Cloud that she had someone she liked and was already dating, and that person was Kain.
The problem was that she had not even told Kain about this yet. Saying something so one-sided felt horribly awkward.
And that excuse had been Aerith's idea. According to her, it would become true eventually anyway.
But would it really become true?
As for Cloud, Tifa had not seen him for seven years. That was even longer than Aerith's situation. And unlike Aerith, Tifa had only felt some affection for Cloud in the past. It had not reached the point where she wanted to fall in love with him.
Now, there was even less chance of that.
Because her heart had truly been occupied by one person.
"Good. Then let's go make the uniforms. Before Mr. Kain leaves, we'll give him a surprise."
By "uniforms," Aerith meant Christmas outfits.
Aside from the Christmas outfits, there was also the nurse outfit scenario.
But merely wearing those clothes for him to see would not count as much of a surprise.
Tifa thought of what Aerith might be planning, and her face began to heat.
It was far too bold.
"Tifa, what do you think Yuffie is doing right now?"
As for Yuffie, she was probably already beside Kain, inside Shinra Company, where the ultimate materia synthesis was underway.
"Yuffie is probably saying bad things about us."
That was Tifa's guess.
After all, Yuffie knew that she and Aerith were saying goodbye to their pasts. She had seized on that point and immediately run off to Shinra Company, likely to tell Kain that their old flames had reignited or something along those lines.
That made Yuffie seem extremely underhanded.
But after Aerith kissed Kain today, Yuffie had openly declared war.
She had said she would absolutely find a way to steal him away, and that she would use any means necessary.
So when it came to Yuffie's attempt to tattle on them, Tifa and Aerith merely exchanged a smile.
That girl really was adorable.
...
Shinra Company's research facility.
Yuffie glared at someone with puffed cheeks. No matter how much she exaggerated and embellished her story, he did not react at all.
This was bad.
If things kept going like this, she would not be able to beat Aerith. And if Tifa entered the competition too, that would be even worse.
Although Yuffie called herself a pretty girl, comparing herself to those two really made her unwilling to accept it. They were more mature, more beautiful, and more charming.
Hmph. In a few more years, she would definitely be prettier and more charming than both of them.
In that case, she would have to be more direct.
If subtle methods would not work, then she would make a bold move—something daring enough to catch him off guard and make him see her as a woman, not just a noisy girl tagging along.
A surprise visit tonight, maybe.
Once she settled on that battle plan, Yuffie looked at him with a sly glint in her eyes.
However, ten minutes later, her plan was ruined by a piece of intelligence from the Northern Crater.
"This is definitely a trap. Don't accept!"
"We'll know whether it's a trap once I go."
Kain decided to attend the appointment and accept the invitation—a one-on-one duel, without interference from anyone, issued to him by Sephiroth, Shinra's strongest SOLDIER.
If he won, he would be able to eliminate Jenova as well.
(End of Chapter)
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