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One by one, they enter the realtor's office. Their muddy boots leave marks on the pristine floors, and for a moment, Tifa feels bad—until the realtor looks up from the front desk, a vacant expression on his face, and she realizes he doesn't care. Not about them, not about his storefront, not about anything.
Cloud approaches the desk first. The bag of gil—three hundred gold pieces, each worth a thousand gil each—hits the marble counter with a clink. "I'm here to buy the villa."
They each come forward to plop down their own bags. Six bags make up the total: 300,000 gil, stolen from dead Shinra cadets and rotting underwater chests. The realtor grabs a bag, weighs it in his hands, and looks up at Cloud. "You couldn't have brought a bank draft?"
Cloud shrugs.
The realtor sighs. He bends down, rifles through a drawer, and throws a set of keys onto the counter. "All yours."
Tifa frowns. Isn't he going to inspect the bags? They could've given him marbles, for all he knows. "Aren't you going to—"
"The hell do I care? World's ending!" The realtor points out the window. "Haven't you people noticed?!"
Indeed, they’ve noticed. Meteor hangs over the sky, hovering in place of the sun. Tts presence mutes Costa del Sol's beauty, dampening the sound of the waves and the beauty of the brilliant turquoise waters. The instrument of their doom demands attention, and Tifa simply can’t take her eyes away from it.
And she knows that everybody else feels the same—that the coastal town has lost its allure in the face of the coming apocalypse. But truly, what else are they supposed to do? They have no idea what to do next, and they might as well rest up somewhere that’s cozier than the Highwind.
The realtor turns and walks away. Cloud suppresses his grimace and swipes the keys. "Thanks," he mutters, before turning back to the crowd. "Well? Should we go check it out?"
"Yeah," Barret grumbles sarcastically. "Gonna go buy some steaks and have a real fuckin' cookout."
They leave. Tifa looks up at the darkening sky, mottled by dense clouds, and feels the slightest bit of relief; they pass over Meteor, coating the sky, dampening its brilliance, and she can't think of a greater mercy. Out of sight, out of mind, right?
But knowing it's there is harrowing enough on its own.
Every town reacts to the apocalypse in different ways. Cloud can't quite figure out why , but it's an indisputable fact: Mideel's residents had panicked en masse before their town disappeared, the Gold Saucer’s attendees lost themselves to hedonism, and Gongaga's residents resigned themselves to their inevitable doom. Cloud hadn’t been sure what he'd find in Costa del Sol—
—but he hadn't been expecting this .
The townspeople are, at their core, nonchalant . Angry, yes, but only briefly; as soon as their inevitable demise dawns upon them, they shuck off their responsibilities, pour some mimosas, and take to tanning underneath Meteor's glow. They're not concerned with spending their fortunes, securing their belongings, purchasing supplies or hand-wringing over their mortality; they're simply content to live in the moment.
With the help of alcohol.
And with a mimosa in his hand, Cloud can kind of see the allure of it all.
"Don't you think it's weird that they're giving this out for free?" he asks Nanaki.
Nanaki raises his head up. The beach around them is packed with tourists, all intent on swimming, sunning, eating and drinking until they burn to a crisp. "You can't pay Meteor to go away," Nanaki says. "What use is gil?"
The alcohol soaks into Cloud's brain, muddying his thoughts. Above him, Meteor blurs until it becomes a speck of colour in the sky, a dash of orange on a pristine, blue canvas; a mere aesthetic choice, as opposed to a horrifying aberration. And for a second, he can almost forget about it all—until he remembers the sight of the Planet in the rocket's window. Millions of lives, invisible to the naked eye, waiting to perish for the sake of one man's madness.
And suddenly, the mimosa tastes sour.
Beneath the haze, his resolve still lingers. Cloud turns to Nanaki, sets his glass down on the sand, and asks "Why are we here?"
"To rest," Nanaki says plainly. He turns back towards the sea. "Though I don't find this restful," he admits.
"Yeah," Cloud mutters. "Me neither."
"Would you hurry up?!"
"Calm down," Cid grumbles. "I've never seen any of this shit before— no thank you," he says to a woman with a massive flower necklace in her hands. "No, I'm good, go away—"
She successfully manages to loop it around his neck. Cid scowls and stomps ahead, plowing through a group of tourists. Vincent slowly follows him, clad in his own orchid necklace. "You've never been to Costa del Sol before?" Yuffie says, running after them both. "Not even to take the ferry?"
"I fly planes, never needed a fuckin' ferry." Cid stops dead in the middle of the road, surrounded by souvenir shops and clubs. Loud pop music is blasting from a nearby bar; Cid has to raise his voice to be heard over it. "Remind me," he says, "why are we here?"
"To get groceries," Vincent answers.
Cid frowns. "No, I mean—"
Yuffie strolls past him and looks around. Her eyes immediately drift to the Materia shop in the corner—after all, she'd robbed them blind not too long ago—and to the large sign sitting in front of it. "STORE CLOSING. EVERYTHING FREE!" it reads.
"Wait." Yuffie’s eyes widen. "What?"
Cid turns to her. "What's up?"
—But she’s already gone. Yuffie runs up to the storefront and slams her fist on the counter. The shopkeeper, a wizened, grouchy man, slowly hobbles around the corner to greet her. His dour expression grows even more surly. "It's you!" he exclaims. "The girl who bankrupted me!"
"Yeah, sorry about that," Yuffie says off-handedly. "Why are you closing your shop?"
The shopkeeper points at the sky. "World's ending, isn't it? You can't use Materia if you're dead!" He bends down and grabs a cardboard box. He sets it down on the counter and shoves it towards Yuffie. "All yours."
Inside the box are the last of his wares—Materia that would fetch a pretty penny if he were to sell it. The sight of it makes her stomach churn with anger. Why is he so confident that the world is going to end? As if they're not going to do anything about it? But as soon as she lifts her head from the box, ready to chide him, he's gone.
Behind her, Cid whistles. Yuffie whirls around to face them both. "What are we doing here?" she asks.
Vincent glances at the cocktail in his hands. Where he got it from, Yuffie has no idea. "Relaxing, apparently."
Yuffie throws the box of Materia to the ground. "This isn't relaxing!"
Together, they finally make their way to their original destination: the grocery store. Yuffie shoves some granola bars in her pockets and leads them back to the villa—their gorgeous, expensive villa, bought with 260,000 gil (because Yuffie had banked on the realtor not counting it), which, to her, serves as the perfect symbol of their listlessness.
She yanks the front door open and strides inside. Barret is standing in the kitchen, trying to whip up a seasoning mix for their steaks. Cait Sith is sitting on the counter, supervising his efforts. Bits and pieces of food are stuck to every surface, as if Barret had completely lost his temper and decided to paint the walls a new shade of brown. "What the hell are we doin' here?!" he yells.
Cid rips off his orchid necklace and throws it onto the counter. "No idea."
Being aboard the rocket had been a transformative experience. There's very little that can invoke emotion in Vincent's heart nowadays, but being up beyond the sky, looking down at the Planet’s vastness, had provoked the tiniest twinge of something in him. Nibelheim, the scene of his torment, had been no larger than a speck of dust. His sins had felt utterly miniscule in comparison to the vastness of the Planet—and all that threatened its existence.
This is bigger than him. It's better than all of them. And they're all aware of that—now more than ever.
Perhaps that's why they've stalled.
It's sunset. The beachfront in front of the villa is nearly empty. The horizon, brilliantly painted with dark blues and deep pinks, is muddied by a roll of storm clouds approaching from the east. Meteor, shining in the darkening western sky, looks more brilliant than ever.
"Maybe that's why they're all gone," Barret mutters, referring to the tourists. "Can't ignore it when it’s dark out."
They’re all sitting on the sand, looking out at the horizon. Their free cocktails are sitting on the ground, forgotten. Barret's steaks go uneaten. Vincent walks off to the side, a short distance from the others, and sits down on the damp ground. His cloak becomes coated in damp sand.
Tifa’s whisper is barely audible over the sound of the crashing waves. “She wanted to come back here, you know.”
Cloud picks up a handful of wet sand and squishes it in his palm. "Yeah," he mutters. "She did."
Cid glances at the sky. “Won’t be much to come back to.”
One by one, their gazes floats up to Meteor. Vincent stares at it, a deluge of memories overtaking him—of Sephiroth's madness, of Lucrecia's experiments, of all Vincent did, could've done and didn't do—until Cait Sith's voice breaks through his thoughts, reducing his churning feelings of regret to a quiet simmer. "What was she trying to do?"
Nobody answers him. Even Vincent doesn't know how to answer that question. They sit there in silence, surrounded by crashing waves and quickening winds, until Nanaki says, "Grandfather might know."
Cloud's back straightens. "You think so?"
"It’s worth asking."
They slowly sit up, brushing off their clothes and picking up their discarded drinks. Vincent walks further towards the shore, the ocean water tickling the edges of his boots.
In the distance, voices ring. "When should we leave?" Tifa asks. "Tomorrow?"
"If we left now, we'd be in Cosmo Canyon by morning," Cid points out.
Vincent stares at the horizon. The storm clouds have rolled in even further, quickening the wind and stirring the seawater into a frenzy. Above him, the approaching storm obscures Meteor, reducing it to a few rays of light beneath heavy clouds—but Vincent knows it's there. After all, hiding the problem beneath a cloak of darkness doesn't make it go away.
He knows that more than anybody.
Vincent turns and follows the others, the storm to his back. They originally came to Costa del Sol to relax, but he knows it’s a paper-thin excuse; they came to Costa del Sol because they were lost, and they simply aren’t lost anymore. He drifts past the others as they gather on the villa’s deck, deliberating the details of their departure. “Come on,” he calls. “Let’s go.”
It’s a terrifying concept to consider, the end of the world—but they know who is threatening it, they know him all too well, and the burden of defeating him lies squarely on their shoulders. With every step they take, they come closer to a resolution. Victory or defeat? Only time will tell.