[actually Cloud could have kept up amazing well with the geostigma part considering the amount of digging into it he'd done since he'd brought Denzel home. It being Sephiroth's... legacy? however was new information.]

Clones.

[he mutters it, as much to himself as Reno.]

Sephiroth can control and manifest through his clones. I thought they'd all died before the Northern crater. I've seen him materialize them out of thin air.

[though he wasn't sure exactly how that had happened, just that physical limitations didn't seem to really matter to a lot of the clones. They had always been dissolving or appearing out of the floor or swooping through the air. Maybe they hadn't all died or maybe he'd found a way to make more.

That wasn't a pleasant thought considering where most of the first batch of clones had come from.

He'd also seen the clones take on the form and powers of Sephiroth, while Sephiroth himself had been safely elsewhere. The madman had also thrown his 'mother's' body parts around like confetti and made some pretty vicious monsters out of them.

This was making his head hurt. More. He scrubbed at his forehead with his free hand.

Though it would almost be a good story to tell Marlene. Three evil princesses. Though he'd have to change the wording a little on the last one...]

I killed him. Again. You think I'd remember that. And that made the... magic rain that cures the geostigma?

[did it sound any more convincing when he said it back to you, Reno. Because it sure doesn't sound that way when you say it.]