Cloud wakes up later to find that his door is hanging wide open.
"What the..? Hey, Tifa, look the door is open."
"Shinra Engineers must have been born in a barn."
"Do you think that joke is getting old enough yet?"
"Nah, give it a few more chapters."
After freeing the others, the group wanders around, and Cloud seems to sense the presence of Sephiroth, and the container marked Jenova has been broken into, and the headless Spice Girl is gone, but there is a blood trail leading upwards, which is promising, Spice Girl-wise.
Following the bloodtrail and fighting off a few random genetic badies created by those oh so silly...
"OK Mr. Narrator," says an annoyed Lemina, "we get the idea about the engineer bit."
Anyways, they follow the blood trail only to find out the president is dead. A survivor, one of the guys from the evil meeting says that he saw Sephiroth. The President's son, Rufus, arrives on the roof of the Shinra Inc. Building, complete with bad guy music.
"Ah, come on. Sephiroth's evil music is much better than this crap."
Cloud tells the group to go on without him, and he'll take care of Rufus alone. The group reluctantly accepts, except for Tifa who stays behind to wait for Cloud.
"Yeah, we wouldn't want you to go and HELP or anything."
Cloud fights Rufus and after a few quick volleys Rufus cowardly escapes. The other three in the meantime go through several volleys with a mechanical device in the elevator, and Cloud meets up with Tifa. They all rejoin in the lobby, but Shinra has already beaten them out front, as they end up being vastly outnumbered. So, in order to break out Cloud rides a motorcycle and uses his sword to protect the others, while the other four cram into a small blue truck of sorts.
"OK guys. I'll ride the three cylinder, kick butt, bad @$$ harley. The rest of you, take the Pinto."
After a short ride down the highway, with Cloud protectively swinging his sword against the approaching Shinra soldiers...
"Wow! Our narrator said something bad about Shinra, and it had nothing to do with engineering!"
A ten ton weight "accidentally" falls on Lemina, making a pleasant crunching sound.
Against the approaching Shinra Soldiers who apparently have nothing but motorcycles in stock. At least until they reach the end of the road, where they have to fight a fire wielding tank, at least three do, the other two just sit in the truck. After that is done, they ride a crane down, and manage to get past the outer perimeter of Midgar.
They head on out in separate groups to meet up in the town of Kalm. Once there they get a room at the inn, and Cloud flashes back to his original encounter with Sephiroth as his friends' requests.
"Do you have any...."
"Don't even think it."
"Well, too late. Why down south, Jack, aboard the Nial River! Jack!"
Old reference, ask your parents.
Cloud starts his flashback with a calmer, friendlier Sephiroth. But, still with unimaginable power. Some monsters have been appearing from the Mako factory near Nibelheim, Cloud and Tifa's hometown. En route they encounter a large dragon of sorts. Cloud can't do jack against it...
"Way down south, Jack!"
(*SMACK*)
"Ow!"
But Sephiroth's power easily crushes the beast
"Yeah, he take his manly type muscles and with pounding pumpitude, turns the little girlie type beast into girlie-man bite sized morsels."
Arriving at his hometown, Sephiroth decides that everyone should rest up before going to the Mako plant. Cloud decides to explore his old town, he goes into Tifa's room at her home and finds a letter from someone saying that they missed Tifa. Cloud then speaks with his mother, it is a simple, pleasant conversation. But, there appears to be holes in Cloud's memories of what happened. Later, a townsman asks for a picture of Sephiroth, which he, Cloud, and Tifa are in.
"It's a Kodak moment."
"Oh shut up."
Later, they go to the reactor, but the rope bridge breaks, and they fall into the ravine. Everyone is fine except for one of the Shinra soldiers. Moving on through to the Mansion, they go inside, but Tifa has to stay outside, and a guard remains behind to insure that she does. Inside one of the capsules that is supposed to be an energy source, are human experiments of Hojo. Sephiroth wonders if the same was done to him, and he flips out. He disappears, and then reappears in the large mountain at the end of town back at Nibelheim.
"I tried to warn him about don't doing the whole Hanson routine, and LOOK where it gets you."
After three days, Sephiroth just goes completely mad.
"Insane in the membrane."
"Insane in the Brain!"
Sephiroth goes past Cloud and in a mad rage. When Cloud leaves the mansion, much to his horror, his entire town is engulfed in flames. Everyone is killed, including his mother. Cloud, wanting revenge, goes after Sephiroth who has returned to the Mako reactor. Tifa leans over her father, who is at the Reactor. She denounces Mako, Shinra, and everything else associated with them, and charges after Sephiroth, just like what happened in one of Cloud's earlier flashbacks. As Tifa goes up to Sephiroth, he slashes at her, and sends her flying. Cloud is there to help to the side, and she seems pleased that he had come to her rescue, just like he promised.
"Yeah, but next time, could you rescue me, BEFORE I nearly get cut in half, you slow poke worthless Soldier wannabe!"
Cloud then goes in to face Sephiroth, and survives. He doesn't remember how though.