Title: Determination
Fandom: Final Fantasy: Advent Children
Characters: Cloud, Sephiroth
Prompt: 054 - Air
Word Count: 283
Date finished: 08/03/2006
Rating: G
Summary: Cloud realizes what he has to lose.
Author's Notes: I wanted to name the images that flashed through Cloud's mind before he beat Sephiroth.
Disclaimer: Characters are owned by Square Enix and Sony Pictures as far as I know.

Cloud hit the wall, hard, and struggled for air so he could get up and….

The Masamune slid into his right shoulder and stopped his thoughts even as his body jerked in reaction. He looked down at it, followed it's impossible length up to the man holding it. How had Sephiroth moved so fast? Or had he been more stunned than he thought?

"Tell me what you cherish most," Sephiroth said as Cloud reached for the blade, exhausted, his arm barely moving. He got a grip on it, and heard the other man's next words. "Give me the pleasure of taking it away."

Adrenaline shot through Cloud, clearing his mind. Visions of those he missed most and loved best flashed before his eyes:

Aerith's hand on his as he followed the Bahamut.

Aerith in the lake near where she'd died.

Zack, looking carefree in the yellow truck on their way to Midgar.

Aerith as she came toward him, impossibly, in the middle of the fireball the Bahamut had fired at him.

Tifa looking at him, a small smile on her face, fondness in her eyes.

Marlene's smile.

The look on Denzel's face the last time he'd seen the boy.

The picture on his desk, the one he hadn't seen in so long, of his little family.

His family.

It gave him strength. He ripped the blade from his shoulder, sticking it back into the wall, grabbed his Tsurugi and lunged to his feet, swinging at Sephiroth.

He wasn't there. But Cloud knew, surer than he'd ever been in his life, that he was going to defeat him again. Once and for all.

Because he was loved. And he loved too much to lose.

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