The green light did not fade. Instead of dimming after the bond was formed, the Lifestream roared louder. The vortex spun faster around Johnny and Aerith, swirling like a hurricane composed of a million fireflies.
The water in the pool churned violently, and the ancient voice echoed again—not in their ears, but slamming directly against their spines.
"Hold hands again! Tighter!"
It was not a request. It was an absolute command from the will of the Planet.
"Now! Let your souls see each other. So that you may know for what—and for whom—you are fighting!"
Johnny's heart seemed to stop. The declaration sent a wave of terror through him that he had never felt before. Not the terror of physical death—he had had his fill of that—but the terror of spiritual nakedness.
His mind raced in panic. He began to think of the things locked away in the dungeon of his memory. Things that a girl as pure as Aerith should never see. His past wasn't just a collection of bad memories; it was a crater of suffering, torture, violation, and mass death. It was the Eclipse.
"No..." Johnny tried to pull his hand away, his voice choking. "Lifestream, listen to me! If she sees that... her soul will shatter. That weight is too heavy for any human, let alone her!"
The voice of the Lifestream answered, calm yet undeniable, like the rumble of a subterranean volcano.
"Then we shall be the veil. We will shield the Cetra from the forms of your nightmares, but she must feel the weight of your wounds."
Johnny still felt sick with unease. Cold sweat trickled down his temples. He didn't want to stain this girl with the blood of his past. Yet, before he could protest further, a small, warm hand caught his cold, trembling fingers.
Aerith.
The girl looked straight into Johnny's eyes. There was no hesitation there. Only an acceptance as vast as the ocean.
"I can do it, Johnny," Aerith whispered softly. "I will accept you. All of you."
Aerith tightened her grip on Johnny's rough hand. Her hand looked so tiny within the Black Swordsman's large, calloused grasp, yet her strength felt real.
The green light exploded, blinding them.
FLASH.
The physical world vanished. The cave, the water, the rocks—all gone. They were forcibly pulled into a boundless white space where time held no meaning.
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Johnny's world turned a painful, sterile white.
He saw no beautiful church or flower fields. The air around him shifted drastically, becoming freezing cold and smelling of sharp chemicals and antiseptics.
He was in Shinra's Laboratory.
Johnny saw a little girl—Aerith at seven years old—curled up in the corner of a giant glass tube. The glass was cold. The floor was cold. No blankets, no toys.
Outside the glass, figures in white coats passed by. Johnny saw "Professor Hojo", with his thick glasses and sadistic grin, tapping on the glass as if inspecting a lab rat.
"Subject shows potential..." Hojo's voice echoed like a nightmare. "Continue extracting blood samples."
Johnny felt the needle piercing his own skin. He felt the mute terror of little Aerith. He felt the heartbreaking longing calling out for a "Mother" who never came.
The scene shifted. The bleak, rainy Sector 7 Train Station.
Johnny saw a beautiful woman dying—Ifalna. Blood pooled on the dirty concrete floor. Ifalna used her last breath to hide Aerith from Shinra's pursuit.
"Take Aerith to a safe place..." was the message Ifalna left for Elmyra, Aerith's adoptive mother.
Johnny felt the eternal loneliness of a child growing up knowing she was different. Knowing she was considered a "specimen," a valuable antique, not a human being worthy of love.
Johnny's heart, which he thought had died and turned to stone, suddenly throbbed with pain. Aerith's pain wasn't the physical pain of a sword, but the cold pain of isolation. It called out to his most primal protective instincts.
'She is just like me,' Johnny realized. 'She is alone in this world too.'
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On the other side, Aerith gasped violently.
Her white world collapsed, replaced by RED.
The sky above was no longer the sky of Midgar, but pulsing red flesh. The sun had turned into a black eclipse dripping with blood. The ground she stood on wasn't soil, but a sea of human faces screaming in eternal agony.
Aerith saw Johnny's shadow—not the boy Johnny, but the adult Guts—standing in the center of that apocalypse. He was missing an eye. He was missing an arm. He was bathed in the blood of his own friends.
Aerith saw his world crumble. She saw the family Guts loved—the Band of the Hawk—vanish one by one, torn apart and devoured.
When Aerith tried to focus her eyes to see who or what was committing these atrocities—trying to see the figure of Femto or the Apostles—the Lifestream kept its promise.
The visuals of the monsters were obscured. They became rough, black static vibrating violently. Their roars were censored into a high-frequency noise that hurt her ears.
"DO NOT LOOK, CHILD," the warning of the Planet echoed loudly. "YOUR SOUL WILL BREAK."
Aerith squeezed her eyes shut, but she couldn't close her heart.
She felt his Emotions.
She felt Johnny's total void as he heard his friends' bones snapping. She felt a rage that surpassed the limits of human sanity. The pain of having no place to return to. A grief deeper and darker than any ocean on this planet.
This wasn't just sadness. This was hell.
SWOSH.
Reality slammed back into them like a sledgehammer.
They were thrown back to the edge of the green Lifespring pool in the underground cave of the Sector 5 Church. Silence returned, broken only by the sound of their ragged breathing.
Johnny stumbled forward, supporting his weight on his hands. His eyes were empty, staring at the trembling reflection in the water.
"Everything... gone," Johnny whispered, his voice broken and hoarse. Tears he hadn't shed in years now welled in his eyes. "I failed... I couldn't save them..."
"You hide your wounds well, Aerith. But I can see them. That burden... that silence... You are my mirror."
Seeing Guts—a figure so strong and stoic—shattered before her broke Aerith's heart. Her cheeks were already soaked with tears, not for her own sadness, but because she had just felt the weight of the mountain Johnny carried alone.
Without a second of hesitation, Aerith tackled Johnny.
She wrapped her small arms around the boy's neck, hugging him tightly as if to anchor him, to keep him from being dragged back into the darkness of that memory.
"You didn't fail! You are here!" Aerith sobbed right into Johnny's ear. Her voice was trembling but fierce. "That world might be gone... that past is gone... but I am here! Gaia is here! Your parents in Sector 7 are here!"
Johnny remained stiff, trapped in post-vision trauma.
Aerith pulled back to cup Johnny's face with her soft hands. Those emerald green eyes were wet, but they burned with a ferocious fire of life—a fire that refused to be extinguished.
"Look at me, Johnny! Look at me!" Aerith urged. "Don't go to that dark place alone again! Share that pain with me! We are bound now, remember?!"
Johnny blinked. Slowly, the image of the red eclipse in his eyes faded, replaced by Aerith's face glowing under the light of the Lifestream.
In those eyes, he saw his own reflection. He saw that he was still alive. And he realized that he was no longer fighting alone.
The walls around the Black Swordsman's heart crumbled.
Slowly, Johnny's trembling hand moved upward. He returned Aerith's embrace, burying his face in her shoulder, inhaling the scent of lilies—real and alive.
"Yeah..." Johnny's voice was raspy, heavy with emotion finally released. "I'm here."
He tightened his hold, swearing an oath to every god that would still listen.
"I am... your shield and your sword, Aerith. Until my last breath."