The amber lion loped through the pitch-black tracks with his two passengers on his back. The light glowing from his forehead faintly illuminated the path ahead. The feeling of Lovel’s warm arms around his waist kept Cliff grounded in reality as the cloying darkness closed in around them.
Some time passed before Lovel softly whispered at his back, “…Hey, Cliff, we ran through a dark railway like this before, didn’t we?”
“Yeah, I was hella desperate to escape then.”
“I totally thought Kiriko was going to be right on our tail.”
“Right? Strange to think now that she’s our ally.”
“She just wouldn’t believe me, even though I told her the real enemy was causing chaos elsewhere,” Lovel said, a smile in her voice.
When he heard her voice, Cliff thought back through the time he had shared with her until today. Memories of fleeing the Torah Church and fighting Kiriko in the underground station came to mind first, then escaping into the town at night with the activated Gandolf. The night he had chatted with her in the abandoned mine, the moment they had reunited at the church, and her many different smiles flashed through his mind.
There was a lot he didn’t know about Lovel. He still had plenty to ask. But the questions he had weren’t enough of a reason not to trust her.
He had been able to fight because she was there. He could continue fighting as long as it was for her, even if the opponent was the master he’d admired for three years, or the Silver Golem Sephiroth, or the strongest Rabbi in Church history. Cliff would have no regrets, no matter what awaited him.
“Lovel, I’ll protect you, no matter who I have to face,” Cliff told her. “You bore the burden of Gandolf with me. So, it’s my turn to bear the burden with you. If you so wish, Grinzam’s—” Lovel’s arms tightened around Cliff’s waist, stopping him from finishing that oath.
“Cliff, I don’t want you to bear any more than you already have…” she whispered in a ghost of a voice. “You have a future. A bright future, where you’ll break free of the dark and live in the light… So, I won’t put this on you. I won’t let you shoulder my burden.” Kindness filled Lovel’s voice, but it was just as sad and lonely.
Cliff’s heart squeezed and his chest ached. “…I want to live that future with you,” he quietly confessed, likely to a crying Lovel.
He heard a faint smile in her quiet reply, “Me too. We’ll be together forever… So, I’ll protect you as well. We’ll definitely save this archipelago together!”
The pain pushing down on his chest ceased with her words. That was all he needed to hear. Her promise made him feel like he could trust her to infinity.
“…We will, without fail,” Cliff assured, slipping a hand over hers.
Just then, he spotted light at the end of the train tunnel, from the underground Torah Church Station.
Cliff concentrated using every nerve in his body to imagine Dram’s moves. He mimicked what Ouka always did to convey his command to Dram, his Golem now.
“Jump, Dram!”
Obeying his command, Dram sprung onto the platform. He continued running up the staircase leading above ground. When they exited the station, not a single soul was in sight in the Church’s front garden. Cliff turned to the north. Considering the location of the railway tracks, Sephiroth would likely come from that direction.
Within seconds of gazing north, Cliff glimpsed a gigantic silver shape, far beyond the Church complex.
“We have to fight that thing…” Cliff shuddered and the hair rose on the back of his neck in anticipatory fear of a silver body so giant it was visible from over a kilometer away.
The only weapons at hand were Dram and the revolver from Kiriko. Cliff pulled the red cube from his pants pocket and frowned at it.
“Damn it all! If only we’d made it in time with this!”
Without a powerful Prime Body, the invaluable red cube was worth less than garbage. They could bury it in the dirt to create Adamah, but the simple Clay Golem would be only fodder before Sephiroth’s spear.
Lovel must have come to the same conclusion, because she asked, “Cliff, is there a huge Prime Body somewhere?”
“Even if there was one, it’d never be big enough…!”
With Gandolf and No. 11 destroyed, there were no more large-scale Prime Bodies around. A Prime Body that could hold its ground against Sephiroth just didn’t exist.
Sephiroth’s arrival was imminent. Lovel’s voice was submerged in hopelessness as she muttered, “If only we had a Prime Body…!”
A Prime Body? A single idea lit up inside Cliff. He lifted his head as the thought struck, and put it into words.
“Lovel! Golems powered by the cube gain the ability to regenerate, right?”
“Uh? I-I think so?”
“In that case, there might be a Prime Body we can use for this.”
“There is?!” Lovel’s eyes widened.
Cliff commanded Dram, “Let’s go, Dram!”
Dram sprung into a dash again. They left the Church grounds, crossed Neck Bridge, and raced toward Chest Island. The entire way, Cliff thought of how the Torah Church controlled the archipelago, how their rule forbid the existence of any overly large Prime Bodies for any period of time. Every time someone had built one, the Rabbis eventually discovered it and destroyed it.
Yes, the Prime bodies were destroyed, just like how the Church had torn down Cliff’s metal giant four days ago.
Dram ran through the center of Chest Island headed for the shop located at Flank Beach Market. Their destination came into view before long.
“We’re here!” Cliff said and hopped off Dram.
Lovel looked at the shop’s sign. “Akizu Company?”
Cliff took Lovel’s hand, helped her off of Dram, and circled to the back of the barracks. Metal wreckage glowed under the moonlight.
“If I can just attach these arms and legs, we’ll be set…!” Cliff fixed his eyes on the wreck, on the arms and legs that had been torn off, on the iron head left on the ground, and on the rusted body that stood almost four meters tall when pieced together.
Before them was the nameless giant Cliff had made with Master Roche. It was likely the sole extra-large metal Prime Body left on the entire archipelago. It stood as the last plausible way to fight Sephiroth with any chance of success.
“Cliff…!” Lovel exclaimed in awe, walking over to the metal giant. She wrenched open the iron plate covering its chest and placed her hand inside, inserting the red cube. Meanwhile, Cliff used Dram to help attach the limbs and head to the metal torso. He pieced it back to what it had looked like before the Rabbis destroyed it.
“Lovel, you name it,” Cliff said.
“What should we…name it?” she asked back.
Cliff nearly told her to name it Gandolf, but that didn’t fit right. Gandolf was the name that belonged to the Golem Cliff and Lovel had killed.
“You decide, Lovel,” he answered.
She nodded and began chanting, “…My name is Lovel Sinclair. In the name of the 72 gods, I give thee the name Aru.”
Her voice echoed into the night sky. The cube inside its chest glowed and the metal giant’s torso shuddered with a jolt. The limbs and head laid on the torso began to fuse together while giving off an unusual sound. Cliff clenched his hands.
It succeeded!
The opening in the chest closed and the limbs merged with the torso. In the blink of an eye, the broken metal giant transformed into a Prime Body with all five parts attached.
Lovel watched and raised her voice as if in prayer, “Live as one with me and return to dust with me. I order thee to defeat Sephiroth!”
Thus, the metal giant known as Aru rose powerfully to his feet. Cliff felt as if he were dreaming. The embodiment of his dreams, that he thought would never move, now launched into motion, granted life and a reason to fight.
“Let’s go, Cliff,” Lovel said. Cliff nodded.
Two people and two Golems strode toward Head Island. Aru advanced down the causeway leading to the Church with heavy, pounding footsteps.
On their way, Cliff asked Lovel, “Why did you name him Aru?”
“I borrowed the name from someone who was once a great Rabbi… I always wanted to name my son that if I had one,” she answered with a lonely smile.
They saw the Church’s Great Bell Tower looming ahead. The sky beyond it was beginning to grow bright, informing them dawn was near.