Chapter 14: Island of Golems
Cliff
THE strongest Silver Golem in history finally came alive. Granted a name and life after four years of slumber, the silver body rose to its feet. Cliff could only watch on in horror as it happened.
“Oh no…!” Lovel said under her breath. She tried to run toward Sephiroth but Cliff’s hand shot out to seize hers.
“Lovel, it’s too late!”
“But…!”
Sephiroth towered over them. They couldn’t see the top of the monstrous silver body without tilting their heads back. Sephiroth spun the massive spear in his hand, brandishing it. But Sephiroth didn’t swing the spear down on them; he thrust it overhead. The spear pierced through the ceiling with a thundering crack and the night sky appeared through the hole.
“He’s trying to go above ground!”
Cliff didn’t let go of Lovel’s hand, holding her back as she struggled to follow them. Sephiroth swung his spear, sweeping out every pillar in his vicinity. The ceiling collapsed and the Research and Development Room began falling apart around them.
“We have to run, Lovel!” Cliff tugged on Lovel’s hand and ran for the exit.
Grinzam’s voice echoed behind him. “Be good little children and wait patiently for me here. Once I finish destroying the Church, I’ll come back to take my time with you.”
“Grinzam! Stop this, Grinzam!” Lovel shouted.
Cliff looked back to find Sephiroth picking up Grinzam and Jair on the other side of the falling debris. Just when he saw them disappear out the hole in the ceiling, the room caved in with a deafening bang.
Cliff and Lovel narrowly escaped seconds before it collapsed. The electric lights in the corridor flickered, then went out. The research facility’s electrical grid must have sustained damage.
Lovel moaned in the darkness, “The Church! All the Golems on the archipelago are going to go berserk…!”
“Let’s go after them, Lovel! The hole in the ceiling isn’t the only way out. We’re headin’ back to the station!”
“Okay!”
They retraced their steps back to the platform in the dark. They fumbled their way along until they stumbled into the hidden station platform. A train car with broken windows waited where they had left it. Cliff saw the small flicker of a flame coming from a lighter inside.
“Ouka?!” Cliff called, running inside the train with Lovel. Kiriko was sobbing beside a blood-covered Spinoza.
Ouka held his lighter toward them and said, “…You came back?”
“Ouka, that man—”
“Spinoza died.” Ouka gently laid Spinoza on the floor and closed his eyes. Cliff couldn’t find the right words to say in the face of Ouka’s weary expression. But Ouka pushed through his feelings to ask them, “I heard a huge explosion not too long ago. What the hell was that?”
“Grinzam beat us to it…! Sephiroth fell into their hands!” Cliff said in a rush of words.
Ouka’s cheek twitched.
“Sephiroth just flew outside and is targeting the Church,” Lovel explained. “If we don’t stop him, this island—this archipelago is done for!”
“B-But…this train won’t move without power,” Kiriko pointed out, wiping away her tears. Cliff didn’t understand what kind of contraption an automatic train was, but he could tell it needed electricity to function.
“Then, we’ve just gotta walk out of here…” Cliff reasoned, reaching to borrow the lighter from Ouka.
Ouka shook his head. “And what will you do when you get there?”
“What?”
“Dram’s the only fighting power we’ve got left, and he can’t move anymore. And his Tamer, yours truly, ain’t in such pretty shape either.”
“We can’t give up now…!”
Sure, what Ouka said was correct, but Cliff didn’t think he was the type to give up now, of all times. Lovel and Kiriko shot him questioning looks too. Ouka smiled at them.
“…We can’t leave things the way they are. So, we’ll have to change Dram’s Tamer to somebody healthy, with fight left in them.” Ouka’s hand shot out and he swiped something from Kiriko’s waist—the tranquilizer gun and bullets for putting a person in suspended animation.
“Ouka, what are you thinking?” Kiriko looked skeptical. Ouka ignored her and loaded the bullet into the tranquilizer gun.
“Listen up, Cliff. This gun puts the Tamer in suspended animation, severing their link to their Golem… This frees the Golem to havin’ their Restrictor overwritten and their name changed,” Ouka said, pressing the gun against his stomach. Everyone gasped.
“Ouka, you can’t be serious…!”
Ouka pulled the trigger without the least bit of hesitation.
“Ouka!”
The gunshot cracked into the air before Kiriko could stop him. The tranquilizer bullet stuck out of Ouka’s stomach. He smiled down at it with satisfaction.
“Now my link will be severed! So, from here on out,” Ouka held Cliff in his gaze and declared in clear voice, “you Tame Dram, Cliff!”
Cliff drew in a breath and looked at Dram—at the amber beast with mighty legs.
“He’s hard to control, and might even go berserk on ya right away…but this is the time, if ever, to try …!” Ouka insisted as his expression sunk into drowsiness.
Cliff nodded and replied, his voice firm, “…Thank you very much, Ouka.”
“I’m countin’ on ya…please…save…this archipelago…” Ouka’s eyelids fell shut.
Kiriko squeezed his hands and cried, “You idiot! Doing this when your body’s injured to this degree could kill you for real…!” Kiriko and Lovel both stared at Ouka, worried and distraught. Obviously, Cliff was worried too, but they didn’t have any leeway for standing around moping.
“Miss Kiriko, please look after Ouka for us,” Cliff said, turning to face Dram.
The light vanished from the letters on his forehead, and black Engrave Incantations floated to the surface of his amber body—evidence that Dram’s link with his Tamer had been cut, returning him to a Prime Body.
Once he saw the blue color fade, Cliff pressed his fingers to Dram’s chest and overwrote his Restrictor. His new Restrictor: “can move today only.” There wasn’t a stricter or more powerful Restrictor out there. It would manifest the highest efficiency and usability in Dram, at the price of his existence.
But Cliff had no choice but to take drastic measures. With his youth and inexperience, there was no other way to use Dram like Ouka.
I’ll bear the sin of killing him. I’ll agree to any punishment. Once everything’s done and over with, I’ll atone for what I’ve done, Cliff swore, and began sonorously chanting the incantation.
“My name is Clifford Evans. With truth as my witness, I give thee the name Dram. Live as one with me and return to dust with me. I order thee to take Lovel and me to the Church!”
Those words brought Dram back to life. He crouched down on the ground, offering Cliff and Lovel his back. They exchanged looks.
“Let’s go, Lovel,” Cliff said.
“Okay!”
Cliff mounted Dram first with Lovel hopping on behind him. Kiriko called out to them as they were about to disembark the train.
“Lovel, there is something I want to ask you before you go. Grinzam attempted to bring your mother back with Sehem-hamphorasch. If I understand correctly, you can use the cube to recreate the dead’s personality and memories… But what about the body?”
Lovel’s expression darkened ever so slightly. Kiriko pressed on. “Even if you can bring back the soul of the person, how do you prepare a body for it? Aren’t you aware of where Grinzam tried to obtain that body from?”
A moment of silence hung over them until Lovel quickly and quietly answered, “I wouldn’t know… I just want to stop him. I want to protect the archipelago containing my nostalgic memories.”
Cliff didn’t really understand the meaning behind their conversation. A ghost of a smile graced Lovel’s lips and Kiriko smiled sadly back at her as if that answer had told her everything.
Then Kiriko reached out to Cliff, handing him a gun. “Cliff, there shouldn’t be more than three bullets left, but…please take it.”
It wasn’t her tranquilizer gun, but one of the real revolvers Heaven’s Gunner used. Cliff accepted it with mixed feelings.
“…You can run away, you know,” Kiriko said after passing him the gun, her voice tender and kind.
“I won’t run!” Cliff boldly declared.
“You think I’d run?!” Lovel exclaimed.
Cliff smiled at Kiriko’s worried and tired expression, and raised his voice. “Time to go, Dram!”
Answering his call, Dram leapt from the train car.
Dram landed on the platform and hopped down onto the railway tracks. He took off in a full-speed sprint into the darkness lying beyond.