Still not suspecting that an entire rescue operation was being organized for him right now, Alex continued to calmly lie on the wooden steps near the "Seventh Heaven" bar. Taking yet another sip of whiskey, he gazed enchanted at the opened night sky and the clouds slowly floating overhead. Having stared at a solitary cloud, Alex felt how Zhang Ya was slowly stroking his head, helping him finally relax and shed the remnants of tension.
Shifting his gaze a little farther, he looked at the fragments of the Plate. Alex was sincerely certain that right now the entire city was stunned by what had happened. But most of all in this situation the top of Shinra's management was amazed, which on its monitors clearly sees: instead of complete destruction the slums of the Seventh Sector had partially turned into a fairy-tale garden of flowering trees.
Thinking about how Shinra was certainly already frantically making plans on how to take this flowering oasis for itself, Alex took yet another small sip of whiskey and set the glass on the wooden step next to himself. Without even trying to rise, Alex again filled the glass, continuing to fully enjoy the silence.
In such a pleasant moment he was not at all interested in the further insidious designs of the corporation. He already knew perfectly well that the leadership of Shinra simply sleeps and dreams of how to drag him into the gloomy laboratory of Professor Hojo in order to extract absolutely all his secrets.
But what truly interested Alex was the strange behavior of Sephira, especially her sudden aggressive actions in possessing the bodies of the dead with the help of the Black Whisperers and the deliberate collapse of the Plate. Bringing the glass of whiskey to his lips, Alex suddenly smirked when the true meaning of this woman's actions finally reached him.
It became absolutely clear to him that Sephira was playing exactly by the same rules as he himself. She was simply trying to maximally push the events of the canon toward her own full resurrection. And even though she no longer had control over Claudia, she still had at her disposal dozens of unsuccessfully created clones that Hojo had spawned without count.
"Yeah… I'd rather have to deal with the classic Sephiroth than with his female counterpart," Alex said with a sigh, examining the bright moon through the amber whiskey in his glass.
"… " Zhang Ya lowered an expressive gaze onto Alex and slightly playfully tapped a finger on his forehead.
"And isn't that so, my love? Well, just look yourself: Sephiroth had some kind of strange, unhealthy obsession with Cloud… And it even seemed to me at the time that he seriously wanted to make Cloud his queen… Wait a minute… Oh…" Alex began speaking animatedly in an exaggerated tone, actively gesturing with his palm in order to more precisely express his thoughts.
"… " Slightly smiling, Zhang Ya slowly ran a cool finger across Alex's forehead, smoothly descending to his nose and lips.
"Well now everything has finally become clear! The fate of this world still decided to put Cloud's headband on my head… And I so sincerely wanted to avoid this. And this, damn it, is not cool at all," Alex said with a light chuckle, shifting his gaze to Zhang Ya.
"… " Again answering nothing, Zhang Ya merely once more tapped a finger on Alex's nose, with silent grace confirming his guess.
"But, on the other hand, this even a little facilitates my further plans. In that other timeline Cloud almost managed to break fate, even though he himself didn't properly understand what he was doing…" Alex said thoughtfully, smoothly rising from the steps and sitting more comfortably.
"Having fun…" Zhang Ya said in a quiet, velvet voice, tenderly leaning against his shoulder.
"Except just a tiny bit… And besides, I'm damn interested in finding out what kind of creature this Jenova even is. And also—to visit the most different places of this world. Mmm, I'm already literally waiting impatiently for our further adventures… This will be insanely fun," Alex answered with a warm smile, with one arm embracing Zhang Ya around the waist and tenderly pulling her closer to himself.
In this situation Alex sincerely didn't care that Gaia had decided to put Cloud's headband on his head, trying with all her strength to return the habitual course of events to the needed channel. This was so insignificant and banal that he was simply too lazy to pay attention to such whims of fate.
Besides, he perfectly realized that this entire turmoil had begun exactly from the moment when he and Dean first met Aerith in the church—right after Lucifer had absolutely unceremoniously dropped the two of them downward. Alex could without the slightest difficulty shed this unnecessary, imposed halo of the savior. For even without extra efforts it was enough for him to accidentally sneeze so that Sephira, the Black Whisperers, and Jenova herself in the same moment would forever cease their existence.
However, in that case he would brazenly violate the terms of the deal with his older brother Lucifer and would not receive the desired second hellish dagger for his personal collection. And refusing an accepted deal or crossing out its terms was absolutely not in his spirit.
Lighting a thin cigar and thoughtfully reflecting on his older brother, Alex quite reasonably assumed that it was precisely Lucifer who had slightly joked over him, arranging it so that this absurd halo of the savior would descend onto his head. Knowing perfectly the specific character of his older brother, Alex was certain of this guess practically ninety percent—and for the remaining ten he allowed that Lucifer in this nasty business had been gladly helped by Amenadiel.
Quietly chuckling at his own naivety, Alex thought that from the very beginning he should have demanded an official contract and thoroughly studied absolutely all the minor terms before agreeing to yet another sudden adventure of Lucifer's.
"Decided to have fun and pull the halo of the savior onto my head?" Alex asked the night coolness with a knowing smirk, raising his gaze to the bright moon.
"Oh, well would you look at that, you guessed so quickly! And I naively believed that you would be too busy flirting with all these cute girls and wouldn't even notice anything… Aren't you at all ashamed of so shamelessly spoiling the fun of your older brother?" right behind Alex's back rang out a familiar, velvet British accent that he would never and with no one confuse.
Hearing the familiar voice of his older brother right behind his back, Alex slightly sighed, receiving final and unambiguous confirmation of his own conjectures. For no matter how much Gaia was a living planet with colossal influence on the timeline, she would still not be capable of independently putting the halo of the savior on his head.
In such an adventure she could be helped only by a being absolutely equal to him in power and thoroughly knowing all possible loopholes in the laws of the multiverse. Turning their heads, Alex and Zhang Ya saw Lucifer, who unhurriedly stepped out of the dense shadow, sparkling with scarlet-red eyes that were gradually returning to the habitual deep black color.
Stepping into the light, Lucifer put on his signature light smirk and unhurriedly descended the wooden steps, beginning to examine everything around and slightly nodding his head—exactly like a client who had come personally to check how the builders were carrying out a large-scale project.
Looking around and examining the picturesque destruction of the slums among which trees were luxuriantly sprouting, Lucifer unhurriedly took out from his pocket a stylish smartphone relatively recently gifted to him by Alex and began taking photos. Observing yet another eccentric antics of his older brother, Alex merely wearily sighed and took a new sip of whiskey, continuing with his free hand to affectionately embrace Zhang Ya around the waist.
Having taken a sufficient number of shots of the surrounding situation, Lucifer raised the phone higher and switched the camera to front mode, intending to take an effective selfie against the background of the "Seventh Heaven" sign, which in his execution looked damn ironic. Looking at the screen and noticing that his younger brother with his daughter-in-law were reacting absolutely in no way to the camera, Lucifer turned around and with a smirk began speaking, parodying an elite photographer.
"I need a normal, juicy selfie, and not these sour faces of yours in the background!" Lucifer declared with a cunning squint, tilting his head.
Rolling his eyes, Alex nevertheless slightly smiled and playfully raised the glass of whiskey. Zhang Ya, for her part, merely bestowed upon Lucifer an absolutely empty, cool gaze, not even giving a hint of a smile. Devilishly smirking, Lucifer took a couple of quick shots and immediately saved them into a separate protected folder. Having finished the improvised photo session, Lucifer put the phone into his pocket and approached the wooden steps on which Alex and Zhang Ya had settled. Carelessly leaning on the railings, he completely unceremoniously snatched the bottle of whiskey standing next to Alex and with a quiet click pulled out the cork.
"Mmmm… Donaghy's. Elite whiskey straight from Night City… How pleasant it is to know that my beloved little brother still has inviolable reserves," smelling the tart aroma of the alcohol, Lucifer said with a smirk and without a twinge of conscience poured a generous portion of whiskey into his glass.
"And how do you even know where this whiskey is from? I somehow don't recall you ever having been in that universe," Alex asked with sincere interest, carefully observing the manipulations of his older brother.
"Ah, that! Well, after listening to your captivating stories, I thought: hey, why am I any worse than my younger brother? So I swung for a short while to Night City. And at the same time looked at what you managed to pull off there… I even bought a couple of gorgeous little cars for my personal collection," Lucifer answered with a light smile, casually leaning on the wooden railings and smoothly swirling the glass of whiskey in his hand.
"Don't you have anything at all to do? And what about your favorite hobby—getting on Chloe's nerves? Or maybe once again joke over 'Detective Ass' Dan? And what about your club?" Alex began pouring questions one after another, sincerely not understanding where Lucifer had gotten so much free time.
"Joking over Dan has somehow already bored me. As for the Detective—everything with us is rather stable… And as for my club—well, it's temporarily closed for now," Lucifer answered thoughtfully, bestowing upon Alex a cheerful gaze.
"Closed? Why would you suddenly close the club? Has Maze finally quit and still decided to send you to hell?" Alex needled his brother with a mocking smirk, pouring himself a fresh portion of whiskey.
"Well, I had to close the club for a major renovation after it was blown to hell," Lucifer answered in an absolutely carefree tone, without asking taking the bottle of whiskey from Alex's hands.
"Cough-cough!.. In the sense—blown up?! Who even has such a boring life that someone simply took and went to blow up the club of Lucifer Morningstar himself?!" Alex immediately choked, barely not choking on the alcohol and amazedly raising his gaze to his brother.
"Oh, it was simply an incredibly comical situation! I'm sitting, you see, in the club, peacefully chatting with Maze… And then a courier brings me a package. I even thought: oh, maybe I ordered some trinket from Amazon and safely forgot…" Lucifer began telling with a quiet chuckle, unhurriedly pouring whiskey into his glass.
"And what happened next? Did Maze order this package?" Alex asked, leaning back and more comfortably resting against the step, casually crossing one leg over the other.
"Don't interrupt, little brother! Inside there turned out to be a rather piquant little note… So, where is it… Ah, here! 'Even if you are our native uncle, we will never forgive you for the fact that you spoiled our family vacation. This is our little retribution—have fun!'" raising an index finger, Lucifer read with expression, along the way extracting from his pocket a crumpled scorched scrap of paper with the threat.
Wishing to say at least something, Alex opened his mouth, but instead of coherent words only a nervous, doomed chuckle escaped him. For he understood perfectly to whom exactly in all known worlds there was enough courage and insolence to blow up the elite club "Lux," and even leave a bold note with a threat. Only his own daughters were capable of such a thing, who were impatiently awaiting yet another big family trip to another world in order to spend time with all their mothers and himself.
Rubbing his forehead, Alex with a sigh pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling a light approaching headache. He was one hundred percent certain that the homemade explosive device had been assembled by his little uncontrollable pranksters Jinx and Tina, the text of the note had been composed by Nyaruko and Anya, and the covert courier delivery had been unerringly ordered by Alessa, who had managed to adopt from her mother Wednesday all the subtleties and intricacies of how to cover any traces of a crime.
Lucifer himself with an open smirk observed the torments of his younger brother. He himself was not in the least concerned that his native nieces had decided to take revenge on him in such a way for the fact that he had sent their father to play the role of a hero saving an entire world.
It even seemed damn cute to him that his nieces were growing up such inventive pranksters. After all, for many millennia no one had ever so filigree played a prank on him—usually only he himself arranged such antics for the others. Slightly chuckling, Lucifer extracted an ancient hellish coin from his pocket and began smoothly, hypnotically rolling it over his fingers.
"Fine… I'll fully pay for the renovation of your club myself. After all, it's my daughters who once again pulled such a stunt," Alex said with a sigh, raising a heavy gaze to Lucifer.
"Oh, you definitely shouldn't worry about that, little brother! You've already fully paid for everything," Lucifer answered with a mocking smirk, with an accurate flick throwing the hellish coin to Alex.
"With what exactly?! I somehow don't recall at all that what I gave you could in any way cover the major renovation of the entire club," Alex asked again with doubt, carefully examining the caught hellish coin on his palm.
"I dropped by your guild the other day… And, you know, I remained rather impressed!" Lucifer answered, chuckling, and showed Alex a raised thumbs-up.
"With what exactly? My employees or my large family?" Alex asked, forcing the hellish coin to smoothly rotate right above his open palm.
"With both! Who would have thought that the Devil himself would have to severely bargain with your wives? Especially with this pink-haired pest and her mother! I even in my sinful mind thought that I was meticulous in drawing up deals… But your white-haired weapons dealer turned out to be even more persistent and merciless!" Lucifer answered in a cheerful tone, extracting from the inner pocket a solid, thick stack of documents.
"Hey, don't you dare call Saya a pest, she's very cute and caring. It's quite clear to me why Yuriko participated in this… But what didn't suit you about Koko? A contract is a contract," Alex answered, rolling his eyes and taking the plump stack of documents from Lucifer's hands.
"I'm simply stating a fact, little brother. Although the fact that they all look at me as some kind of main villain sincerely upsets me! So what if I postponed their family vacation by about a month… It's completely not worth blaming me for this," Lucifer responded in an absolutely carefree tone, sincerely not seeing reasons why absolutely everyone around considers him guilty.
"Yeah, of course… And precisely for that reason, judging by this contract, the restoration of your club will now be handled by the Minions… Yeah. Something tells me you didn't even try to read what you were signing," Alex said in a thoughtful tone, together with Zhang Ya quickly leafing through the stack of papers and meticulously reading the terms of the deal concluded by his older brother.
"Those are those same little yellow things in blue overalls for which Trixie recently dragged me to the cinema?" Lucifer asked clarifyingly, vainly trying to recall whom exactly was being talked about.
"Yeah, exactly them. So I'm afraid when you return to 'Lux,' it will become 'Golden Lux'… And in the most literal sense of this word," Alex answered with a smirk and extended the unfolded contract back toward Lucifer.
Taking the stack of documents, Lucifer thoughtfully looked at Alex, pondering his words, after which he lowered his gaze to the severe terms of the contract. Lazily leafing through a couple of pages, Lucifer merely indifferently shrugged his shoulders and tossed the documents aside, with one motion putting them into his personal space.
It even seemed to him that if his establishment in the end became "Golden Lux," then it would look even more extravagant and provocative. Imagining his own club solidly covered in pure gold, Lucifer contentedly smirked and again casually leaned on the wooden railings, raising his gaze to the moon and taking an unhurried sip of whiskey.
After all, he in any case was in absolutely no hurry anywhere: the club was temporarily closed for renovation, Chloe had plunged headlong into the investigation of yet another tangled case, and he himself could dispel the accumulated boredom by absolutely any available means. For even the eternally annoying Amenadiel had finally found himself an occupation, for some reason deciding to become a simple patrol policeman.
Quietly chuckling at this news, Lucifer turned to Alex and in all details told about what exactly their righteous brother had decided to occupy himself with. Hearing that Amenadiel had gone into the police, Alex simply could not help joking, noting that this was in any case far better than if the latter had suddenly imagined himself a stern city avenger. Barely had these words rung out when Lucifer loudly and sincerely burst out laughing, vividly imagining their majestic brother in a stupid tight costume, running across the night roofs and saving belated passersby from street robbers.
Already a couple of minutes later Alex and Lucifer were fully discussing this topic, inventing one after another the most absurd and ridiculous pseudonyms for Amenadiel in case of his superhero career. Zhang Ya became so bored listening to this absurd conversation that she preferred to silently return into Alex's dense shadow—just so as not to be accidentally drawn into yet another madness.
In the course of the heated discussion Alex for pure fun decided to sketch a couple of detailed designs of "heroic" costumes, in the process of creating which Lucifer took the most active part. Understanding that this would become a simply ideal opportunity to thoroughly joke over the eternally strict and correct Amenadiel, Lucifer took the finished sketches for himself, with a devilish smirk assuring his brother that he would definitely find the best application for them.
Continuing to casually chat and paying absolutely no attention to the running time, Alex and Lucifer suddenly heard excited voices coming from afar. Turning their heads toward the noise, both brothers instantly understood to whom exactly these worried shouts belonged.
"Judging by these panicked howls, seems they're already fully going to rescue you, little brother," Lucifer began speaking in a cheerful tone, turning his head to Alex.
"Well, I can't blame them for that. After all, I extremely heroically stayed to win valuable time so that none of them would perish," Alex answered with a light smile, deftly rolling the shiny hellish coin between his fingers.
"Yes-yes, 'heroically'… I almost believed you! Right now you'll guaranteed receive a juicy portion of worried hugs and all that," Lucifer said in a lazy, feignedly envious tone, smoothly setting the empty glass next to the half-empty bottle of whiskey.
"More likely not hugs, but an entire avalanche of questions about how I did all of this, how I even survived, and why instead of returning to the squad I sat down here and am drinking in complete solitude," Alex snorted, rolling his eyes, and took an unhurried sip.
"Oh, what a pity that I won't be able to observe this entire magnificent drama from the front rows—the way Dean is doing right now," Lucifer said with exaggerated regret, with an elegant motion adjusting the snow-white cuffs on his black shirt.
"What, you won't even stay to say hello to Dean? Or at least play the role of a mysterious enigmatic stranger who drops a couple of vague phrases and immediately dissolves into the night as if he hadn't been here at all?" Alex asked with interest, lighting a thin cigar and raising his gaze to his older brother.
"Sounds devilishly tempting, my dear younger brother… But better to save this performance for the finale of the events in Midgar. I think that way it will be far more effective," Lucifer said thoughtfully and with a quiet snap of his fingers opened a shimmering interdimensional portal right in front of himself.
Looking at his older brother, Alex wearily sighed, already managing to regret that he had even uttered these words aloud. For now this guaranteed meant that in the near future Lucifer would definitely appear pompously in the guise of a "mysterious stranger" in order to with an important air point everyone the true path.
Noticing the doomed gaze of his younger brother, Lucifer merely mockingly smirked and cheerfully waved a hand in farewell, stepping into the shining portal. Wearily waving a hand to the departing brother, Alex lazily yawned and leaned back, again comfortably laying his head on the wooden step. Since they had already come for him, he definitely didn't need to make extra movements, but simply calmly wait until he was finally found.
Putting a hand under the back of his head and continuing to unhurriedly sip whiskey, Alex more distinctly than anyone heard the ringing, loud voice of Yuffie that rolled resoundingly in all directions while she was fully shouting his name. Lowering his gaze a little lower, he noticed Yuffie herself, who was sitting on the very top of a lush flowering tree and with an open mouth looking right at him.
Lazily waving to her with the hand in which the glass of whiskey was still clamped, Alex slightly smiled. Sitting on the top of the tree, Yuffie blinked in surprise and slightly tilted her head to the side, not believing her own eyes. She had sincerely believed that Alex was currently lying somewhere under multi-ton rubble unconscious or with the last of his strength fighting for his life—and he definitely shouldn't have the opportunities and strength to casually drink alcohol!
"Hey, little ninja, do you even see anything there or what?!" Barret shouted loudly, standing at the massive trunk of the tree and throwing his head upward.
"Yes, I see! He's there! I'll go ahead!" lowering her head downward, Yuffie shouted back enthusiastically and immediately made a rapid jump toward the surviving "Seventh Heaven" bar.
"Stop! You didn't even say where exactly you saw him!" Tifa shouted worriedly, barely managing to notice how Yuffie deftly and rapidly began jumping from branch to branch.
Observing how Yuffie deftly jumped from a lush branch onto the roof of a half-destroyed house, everyone who had come to help Alex quickly exchanged glances and without delay followed her. Walking the very last, Dean unhurriedly hurried after the others, merely skillfully pretending as if he was sincerely worrying. He better than all the others knew that after the fall of the Plate Alex was simply damn too lazy to go anywhere, and therefore he had safely stayed in place.
Yuffie, for her part, at that moment had already reached the main square, on which there was not even a hint of destruction—as if the multi-ton construction had not fallen into this part of the city at all. Jumping from the roof, the girl for a second raised her gaze to the opened night sky, after which she lowered her gaze onto Alex, carefreely lying on the steps with closed eyes.
Narrowing her eyes cat-like, Yuffie quickly jumped closer and instantly spotted the half-empty bottle of whiskey with an empty glass next to it. Blinking stunnedly, she shifted her gaze to Alex, who did not even stir, continuing to lie with an extremely lazy expression on his face. Resting her hands on her hips, Yuffie from offense kicked Alex on the leg, trying to force him to pay attention to herself.
However, Alex merely for a short moment opened one eye, after which shamelessly closed it back. Noticing this, Yuffie took a deep breath, trying to suppress the surging irritation because of how strongly she had worried for him. And not only she—absolutely their entire group had frantically been searching for him! And he himself was simply casually lying here and sipping alcohol, although an hour ago an entire Plate had crashed here.
Irritably snorting, Yuffie quickly wiped the tears that had appeared in her eyes and began demonstratively, with anger stomping on the wooden steps. Stopping right above Alex's head, she squatted and began methodically, with annoyance poking a finger into his forehead, trying at least that way to vent the annoyance and the thoughts that she had shed tears in vain.
"Hey! And how much longer are you going to pretend?! I saw with my own eyes how you waved to me! And why are you even continuing to lounge here?! By the way, we all were insanely worried for you!" Yuffie cried out with obvious irritation, continuing to continuously poke a finger into Alex's forehead.
"I was simply resting… You know, it's rather difficult to apply such ninjutsu on such a gigantic scale," smoothly opening his eyes, Alex answered and slightly squeezed Yuffie's nose with his fingers, causing her to comically grimace and immediately threateningly open her mouth, intending to snap at his finger.
"I'll bite your finger off up to the elbow right now!.. Wait a minute! Did you just say 'ninjutsu'?! Did you grow all these trees and those gigantic sunflowers that did that 'pew-pew' with the help of ninjutsu?!" Yuffie snorted indignantly, but immediately enthusiastically perked up when the true meaning of Alex's words finally reached her.
"Something like that… It was Wood Element ninjutsu. It actually has a lot of different applications…" Alex began calmly explaining, rising onto his elbows and looking at the shinobi.
"How cool is that! And where did you learn such ninjutsu?! And will you teach me?! I also want to so easily control trees! That will be simply awesome!" Yuffie practically shouted throughout the entire square, not even giving Alex the opportunity to finish speaking.
Yuffie did not even give Alex the opportunity to insert even a word—she grabbed his shoulders in a death grip and began shaking with all her strength. Once again experiencing such an emotional shaking, Alex could only with angelic patience wait for the moment when the lively shinobi would finally run out of ardor. Feeling how fatigue was rapidly covering him from this endless stream of enthusiastic questions, Alex simply covered Yuffie's mouth with his palm.
However, even with a covered mouth the hyperactive ninja managed to continue something incoherently mumbling and colorfully gesturing with her hands, with all her strength trying to force him to teach her the secret ninjutsu. Wearily sighing, Alex hoped only that in the near future the others would finally appear on the square.
And the moment this thought flashed in his head, from the depths of the flowering trees rang out the tramp of rapid steps. Already a moment later from behind a massive rubble an extremely worried group jumped out. All of them for a second froze, staring at Alex, whose view was blocked by Yuffie, who continued insistently shaking him by the shoulders with a covered face.
First of all the arrivals frantically evaluated Alex's physical condition—and, having made sure that he was absolutely whole and unharmed, the entire group simultaneously emitted one big collective sigh of relief. Hearing this friendly noise, Alex finally removed his hand from Yuffie's lips and slightly waved in greeting to the friends. The first who tore off from the spot was Aerith.
She with incredible speed overcame the distance separating them and literally jumped on Alex from a run. Before he managed to properly catch Aerith, Tifa and Jessie immediately piled on him from two sides. Already a couple of moments later he found himself literally buried in the tight, choking embraces of the entire group—and in this spontaneous surge participated not only the girls, but also the guys.
Only Dean did not participate in the general fun, who prudently went to dig out their surviving belongings from the destroyed dormitory with an obvious reluctance to take part in this session of collective tenderness. And Claudia, who preferred to remain on the sidelines, habitually hiding the surging relief behind a strict and cold mask. However, even in such a situation it was rather difficult for her to hide the true feelings, and on her lips played a barely noticeable, warm smile.
"Damn it, kid! You almost gave us a real heart attack here! We already in our sinful minds thought that you were completely finished… And you're calmly sitting here and drinking in complete solitude! Damn, and if not for the fact that you just saved all of us, I would definitely have punched you right now!" Barret began speaking with a wide smirk and began heartily patting Alex on the back, hiding his own relief behind feigned irritation.
"I simply decided to rest a little. And in general, look around: I fully protected my bar. So I'm a huge good guy," Alex answered with a light smirk, with great difficulty extricating himself from the excessively tight friendly embraces.
"Actually this bar is yours only halfway… But still thank you enormously for managing to protect this place. Although it still looks very unaccustomed and strange—a surviving bar when everything around is destroyed," Tifa said with a soft, sincere smile, with trepidation examining the native building that turned out to be the only untouched object in the destroyed slums.
"But if one thinks exclusively positively… Just look at all this incredible beauty! Our habitual home has turned into a real huge forest! This is simply incredibly cool!" Wedge cried out with a joyful and slightly silly smile, running out into the middle of the square and widely spreading his arms to the sides in order to better examine the flowering crowns around.
"Yeah, and Shinra will now with great pleasure take up the cutting down of this wonderful forest," Claudia began speaking in a dry tone, restrainedly casting a glance over the spread-out trees.
"Claudia, don't spoil such a wonderful and touching moment! At least we are all whole, alive, and unharmed," Aerith softly said, peeking out from behind Alex's shoulder and continuing to comfortably hang on his back.
"Yeah-yeah, exactly! Don't spoil the moment, but simply enjoy the stunning view of the green trees," Jessie added with a mocking smirk, sitting down on the step next to him and propping her cheeks with her palms, with pleasure admiring around.
"I'm simply stating facts. And this still absolutely does not cancel that barbaric crime that Shinra still dropped the Plate," Claudia continued still calmly, slightly turning her head toward Aerith.
From Claudia's dry but true words the atmosphere on the square immediately became noticeably tense. For in this bright and wondrous moment absolutely no one wanted to think about what Shinra had just committed and to what terrifying consequences this had led. But even despite the desire to distract themselves, absolutely each of those present understood perfectly: the current situation would still have to be discussed in detail.
Exchanging glances among themselves, the members of the group unanimously decided to postpone this difficult discussion to a calmer setting, and in general to stay right now farther from the tragic Seventh Sector. None of them simply wished to argue about what to do further while being in such a hard-won place.
And before the tension hovering in the air finally spoiled the evening, Aerith with sincere warmth proposed to everyone to go to her place as guests, where they would be able without haste to discuss everything and finally properly rest after such an exhausting and crazy day.
Hearing Aerith's hospitable proposal, the entire group willingly agreed—despite the fact that the native "Seventh Heaven" bar stood before them completely whole and unharmed. Seeing that the friends had joyfully accepted her invitation, Aerith brightly and happily smiled: after all, she had not seen her mother for a whole week and already missed her insanely.
To be continued...
(I just thought that Lucifer really ought to show up at a moment like this. And share how he had to face retribution from Alex's family. That way, after these events, we can move on to the final stage of the Midgard arc and set off on the journey. Yeah. I'd really love to experience an adventure like that myself. Though, knowing me, I'd spend ages complaining about how exhausted I was just from breathing—and constantly begging to be carried. Heheh. Time to go get something to eat. Peace, love, and the imminent arrival of a mysterious stranger.)
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