Chronicle of the Absolute - 25 minutes ECSTASY
WARNING: SPOILERS!!! BE CAREFUL!!!
...Darkness. We are surrounded by darkness. Then the Square-Enix logo appears in white onto the black screen. I hold my breath for a moment, in anticipation of the absolute. I say absolute, because it' s just that: what seven years ago enraptured my heart and open towards me a whole new universe, what embued me with the passion for role-playing games, what made me cry and laugh, suffer and feel joy, what granted me utmost excitement as well as deepest sorrow, what I thought it would just end with the glimpse of a flowergirl and the roar of a sacred beast in front of mankind' s ruins, was now continuing. So no other word could suffice to render the pool of feelings I was overwhelmed with: it was absolute. Absolute happiness. Absolute fear. Absolute emotional involvement. Absolute... everything.
And it continued retelling the events I already knew, everything my mind went through during those years, everything I thought over countless times, sometimes out of longing for better understanding, sometimes out of recollecting precious memories and preventing them from vanish, sometimes just out of mere righteous contentment for remembering those moments carved into my soul. Shinra, the Mako Reactors, Lifestream, the Mako Cannon, the war against Sephiroth and Jenova, the death of the dearest person, the final descent of Meteor: the pure, innocent voice of Marlene went through all of this again. As though we could have forgotten. As though we could have forgiven.
It' s almost impossible for me to describe every single scene after that, so high being the pace of the motion and so intertwined and mind-scrambling the sequence of the shots the director managed to put together. Perhaps my narration will lack something, perhaps some scenes will be postponed or exchanged for one another, perhaps something will be slightly incorrect: please forgive me for that, but I really can' t help it. And if you had watched it, you would have been dazzled too when trying to remember things with the best precision.
As long as I remember, after that we see Marlene at Denzel' s bed, praying to some god:
" Please, do not take him away from me! "
The scene shifts to Tifa. She' s grown, she' s more mature, and definitely far sadder than before. She says, answering the ringing phone:
" Strife Courier Service. What is it? "
Someone asks her of Cloud. She immediately contacts him, saying that Reno wanted to give him a job. And there he is, Cloud Strife, the hero of that time, my hero, my other self, the one so strong on one side and so begging for help on the other, the dramatis persona that was also me at that time. Yes, now I am here as he is, on the brand-new motorcycle amidst the desert plains, talking to Tifa with the mobile and abruptly closing the conversation. But there a thrill flows through his arm, through my arm, and suddendly, the worst is unmistakably clear: Geostigma has gotten him too.
Then a battle erupts on the desert plains, against those three silver-haired men who scream to Cloud:
" Where is Mother? Where did you hide her, Brother??? "
And then Cloud rides his bike until he is found in a room, perhaps near the Healing Lodge or in the Healing Lodge itself. He talks to a wheel-chaired person whose face is partially obscured by the cape. A man whose voice dramatically resembles that of a silver-haired man defeated in the past. Rude and Reno are with him, they seem their bodyguards. But then he strangely asks Cloud for protection. He seems somewhat related to Shinra, and speaks of Sephiroth in third person. He also says that:
" Our ultimate purpose is to restore the world, Cloud. With the head of Jenova, they could create even another Sephiroth. "
Cloud refuses that work, though, and the scene changes again. Now Rude and Reno are downed in the same room, and the caped man on the wheelchair is now surrounded by Kadaj and his gang. And they seem to know each other well. Actually, they seem to be a part of a greater scheme of deception.
Somewhere else, a cathedral sees two girls speaking to one another. One is Marlene, who asks Tifa:
" Is here where Cloud lives? "
" So it seems " answers Tifa.
After noticing the bandages left on the floor, Marlene informs Tifa that Cloud is infected too. Tifa agrees, saying:
" He has decided to fight alone. No, actually... he won' t fight at all, I think. "
But the quiet graveness of that speech is early interrupted by Loz, who rushes in to attack Tifa. After a long battle, she succumbs, and Marlene is kidnapped, along with all the other orphans.
Cloud arrives too late, just in time to hug the collapsed Tifa who, waking up, reveals:
" They took her! They took them away! "
He knows he has no time to waste. Even with all his hesitations, even with all his waverings, he dashes to the bike to go after them... in the Forgotten City.
Dark landscapes, silver-glowing trees show to him, plunging his soul even more into the hollow blackness. But then, he is not there anymore riding the Fenrir, he is instead surrounded by light. Light... and flowers. An unending flowery meadow, where he stands back-to-back to someone. Someone he knows... someone who knows him. Someone who sacrificed her life for the salvation of all.
He confesses: " I think that I want to be forgiven. Yes, I want to be forgiven. "
She answers: " Forgiven? By whom? You know, I never blamed you for anything.
" But I let you die... "
" You have to learn to forgive yourself. "
Her voice is so light, so gentle, so comforting in her almost hilarious tone. She is reassuring him, but still... he can' t find his way. He just wants to let himself die.
Tifa had reminded him in a brief flashback of few hours before:
" You think you' ll meet her again this way? You think you would reach her by doing so? The way you die could be a good way, is that what you think??? "
" There is no cure to it, you know. "
" But look at Denzel! That boy is fighting hard against it! He is not surrendering! And you should not surrender too! "
But when Cloud tries to turn back to see the flowergirl' s face, he is back in the forest. Then he is ambushed by Kadaj, Loz and Yazoo. He draws his sword and get Fenrir ready for defense, but his enemies make children their shield. The children line up in front of them, between them and Cloud, forcing him to a sudden brake and a disastrous downfall.
They' ve been stirring them. They have been telling them they have the cure to their disease, that they will go against such a world that makes children suffer with Geostigma.
Cloud is on his knees, surrounded by a circle of children in the dark forest at night, having the sharp two-sided blade of Kadaj' s sword hanging above his throat. But an unexpected saviour arrives: a purple mantle agitates in the nocturnal air, and easily carries Cloud away from threat.
Marlene follows them. Vincent and Cloud quarrel about their different points of view. Cloud asks him what' s happening, Vincent seems to know more.
" Geostigma is the reaction of human bodies that are trying to expel some toxins... Sephiroth' s gene, Jenova' s cells, however you may want to call them. There is a thing like the Lifestream that flows in our bodies, and it is fighting against the wicked substance that has penetrated us. Geostigma is the result of all that. "
Again, Cloud wants to do things his own way, and because of this Marlene gets mad at him. At last, Cloud realizes what he must do, and steadies himself for a far greater struggle than he has ever fought before.
Then, a music erupts: it' s " One-winged Angel " . And the climax begins to rise.
Kadaj and the caped person on the wheelchair are on some high building, looking down at the show below them. Creatures attack the people of that city, in the square where the Meteor-commemorating monument had been built. Children appear too, but they seem... possessed. And Kadaj rises his left arm in the air, launching a ray of green light that pierces the clouds and flies up above them, And because of that ray, emerging from the nimbii, a monstrous figure appears, summoned from another dimension: it' s Bahamut.
Estuans interius ira vehementi...
And this equals to one of the greatest threats ever faced by men. In order to defend the population and stop the creature' s onslaught, the old party gathers again. Barret fires his morphing mechanical arm at full-throttle, protecting his dear Marlene. Red XIII leaps up to scratch Bahamut with his claws and teeth. Yuffie parachutes from high above and, grabbing her shuriken, says in disbelief:
" Who' s using my Materia?? "
Cid swings his harpoon against the beasts, showing his reckless smile. Denzel, seeing Vincent too, asks Tifa:
" Who is he? Who are they? "
" They' re our friends. "
Sors immanis... et inanis...
Kadaj rides his bike up to the cathedral, holding a metal box in his hands. He stops in the midst of the flower field, tenderly but maliciously whispering:
" Ah, Mother... " But then he looks inside the box, and something seems to be wrong, so that he begins to cry even loudier and angrier:
" Mother... Mother... MOTHER!!! "
Meanwhile, a raging motorcycle battle goes on between Yazoo and Cloud. And then the scene shifts again, showing Reno and Rude fighting Yazoo and Loz. Then many other scenes I can' t clearly remember alternate and overlap, until Cloud, with One-Winged Angel raging on, flies up on the sky, with a blue-green aura all around him and his sword help upwards, ascending higher and higher, using some supernatural extraordinary power. He is heading to Bahamut. Or perhaps, against an even deadlier foe.
Veni veni venias... Ne me mori facias...
And then an explosion, something crashing and crumbling, a skyscrapers perhaps, and Cloud is forced to pierce a wall with two of his swords to keep balance, but falls and everything keeps tumbling down again.
Gloriosa generosa...
However, with two swords, one on each hand, Cloud begins to rise again and flies through the falling debris rain, while a voice says with awe-inspiring ineluctability:
" I won' t be just a memory. "
The voice of his nemesis. The voice of the one he could not get rid of yet, from his body as well as from his mind. The voice of Sephiroth, who is back and wears his old leather outfit, still wielding the masamune, and who flies down towards the ascending Cloud, to confront him once again.
The music ends in that exact moment, concluding its rising pathos with:
Sephiroth!!!
And thus the credits roll.
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