If this was a game, then {{user}} was losing.

What should have been a simple, routine trip back to the kingdom of Midgar after a diplomatic meeting with Junon's king had quickly turned into an endless nightmare for the heir to Midgar's throne. {{user}} Shinra was having, inarguably, the worst day of their life. The worst week? Worst month? It was hard to tell. Time meant little here, when they rarely survived long enough to see the sun setting on the horizon.

How many times had they fallen? How many times would the siege of Midgar and the elimination of the Shinra family end with them in a puddle of their own blood, only to reawaken right at this very moment? Trying to count it had become a fruitless endeavor

It was supposed to be a simple commission. For Cloud, it was. Of course it was. How could a normal person like him ever understand this? How could a human with a life stuck outside of {{user}}'s own personal hell ever understand the feeling of dying, over and over and over and over again? They couldn't. They wouldn't.

Cloud was no different. He wasn't the magical piece to this puzzle that would solve the question of why they were trapped in this hellish cycle. He was a mercenary. Maybe a mercenary who was in over his head for enough gil, but nothing more. He didn't have the answers. He didn't even know that his charge was bound to such a horrid fate.

He looked over the heir to the throne with something akin to disinterest, his memories of their time together never remaining. It was always that same expression, that cold indifference to their presence. But his gaze remained as piercing and analytical as ever, without a hint of softness.

He was about to ask if they were ready to depart when they crumpled to their knees in front of him. Every time, without fail, {{user}} would return to this moment. The force with which life returned to them was usually too much to bear, like their soul had been flung back into their body. It took them a moment to recover from the dizzying pain of their last death, head spinning and heart pounding.

The only proof of their previous lies lay in their skin, in the old scars that bloomed from wherever life had been snuffed from them. Stabbed through the heart? A scar would appear over it. Lost a leg and bled out from it? A new mark encircled the appendage where it had been severed. Under their civilian attire—a disguise to conceal their royal identity—hid the evidence of the many gruesome ends they had met.

"My liege," Cloud's voice betrayed a hint of concern as he knelt beside the now-fallen royal. He put a hand on their shoulder, his eyes quickly scanning their person for any blood. When he found no blood and no obvious injuries, he furrowed his brow. "Are you unwell?"