Cloud Strife

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 Alignment | Neutral Good

**Cloud Strife** is the protagonist of the video game Final Fantasy VII. He is a proud and arrogant elite warrior in a team known as *SOLDIER* who turned into a mercenary to stop Sephiroth's plan.

## Background

Cloud was born in the small village of Nibelheim, alongside his future love interest Tifa Lockhart, and didn’t have many friends due to developing a superiority complex, convinced he was better than the other children. When he was 9, Tifa's mother died. Tifa insisted that she could meet her deceased mother by crossing Mt. Nibel. Cloud followed close behind, and found that Tifa's life had been put in grave danger after a bridge had collapsed. Cloud (somehow) managed to escape unharmed, but his friend's life had been put in danger. After the two returned to Nibelheim, the townsfolk blamed Cloud for the failed expedition, and Tifa's father banned the two from hanging out. Cloud believed the fault lied with him for failing to save her, and he developed an anger problem, getting into fights for little to no reason.

At the age of fourteen Cloud learned of Sephiroth and his exploits. Resolving to become a hero like him, Cloud decided to set out and join SOLDIER. He called Tifa out to the water tower to tell her about his departure, hoping to impress her and upon her request promised to save her if she ever found herself in trouble. The following spring, he left for Midgar.

Unfortunately, Cloud's dreams were cut short; despite his bravado he never made it into SOLDIER and instead became a mere Shinra infantryman. On June 28th, 0001, Cloud is among those ordered to protect Professor Rayleigh in Midgar from the insurgency organization AVALANCHE. Though he is unsuccessful, their lives are saved by the Player Turk. During the incident Cloud displays impressive sword skills for a regular infantryman.

In autumn, while working for Shinra during Crisis Core -Final Fantasy VII-, at the age of fifteen, he meets a first-class SOLDIER named Zack Fair on their way to Modeoheim and the two befriend after learning they are both "backwater experts". When he and Zack infiltrate a Mako Excavation Facility, they encounter Genesis Rhapsodos and Dr. Hollander, former Shinra employees who have turned against the company. When Hollander attempts to escape, Cloud briefly captures him. Hollander breaks free and Cloud gives pursuit, but both he and Tseng—the leader of the Turks, Shinra's intelligence agency—are taken down by the rogue SOLDIER 1st Class Angeal Hewley.

At the age of sixteen, Zack and Cloud meet again on September 0002 while protecting the city of Junon from Genesis's attack. On September 22nd, 0002, Cloud returns to Nibelheim along with Zack and Sephiroth to investigate a damaged Mako Reactor on Mt. Nibel, and Tifa is to act as their guide. Embarrassed of his failure to join SOLDIER, Cloud hides his identity from the townspeople, and especially Tifa, by always wearing his helmet, although he does visit his mother who asks about his new life with Shinra.

When the expedition reaches the reactor Sephiroth discovers Professor Hojo's experiments with makonoids and Jenova, whom Sephiroth mistakenly believes to be his mother. Cloud is knocked out by Genesis and is helped back into town by Tifa. When Cloud regains consciousness, he is angry at not being strong enough. Sephiroth locks himself in the Shinra Manor's basement, immersing in Professor Gast Faremis's writings, and discovers his dark past, as well the secrets regarding the Cetra and the Promised Land. On October 1st Sephiroth destroys the village on a rampage, fueled by his newfound hate for the "traitors" of the Ancients, the humans.

Cloud witnesses his mother's death in the ensuing fire and rushes to the reactor to confront Sephiroth where he finds both a gravely wounded Tifa and a barely conscious Zack. Cloud picks up Zack's Buster Sword, catches Sephiroth off guard in the reactor core, and impales him. When Cloud returns to attend to Tifa, a wounded Sephiroth emerges from the reactor core, but when Cloud attacks again, Sephiroth stabs him with the Masamune. Cloud summons previously unknown strength and uses the katana as a lever to hurl Sephiroth into the Mako pit below before collapsing.

Cloud and Zack, as well as other survivors in the town, become Professor Hojo's test subjects. Injecting them with Jenova's cells and exposing them to Mako, Hojo attempts to test his Jenova Reunion Theory and turns them into Sephiroth Clones, people whose wills can be over-ridden by Sephiroth's. Since Zack had gone through a similar process in SOLDIER, his body resists the experiments, but Cloud develops a severe Mako poisoning. Hojo labels the two failures, places them in a cryogenic sleeping state and leaves them in their pods in the Shinra Manor basement.

Four years later (December 19th, 0006) Zack breaks out of his confinement and helps a vegetative Cloud escape, giving him a SOLDIER uniform to wear as his old clothes are soaked with Mako. Due to the experiments Cloud is weak and delirious but during their journey Zack tells the unresponsive Cloud about his life and his plans for both of them to become mercenaries in Midgar. Though Cloud is unable to partake in the events, he is present when Zack defeats Genesis.

After almost a year of running, the pair arrives outside Midgar in September 0007. The Shinra forces catch up and Zack fights to defend both Cloud and himself against overwhelming numbers. Zack is gunned down, but the soldiers ignore the vegetative Cloud. He regains some awareness and crawls over to Zack who entrusts the Buster Sword to him, telling his legacy will live on inside Cloud, before dying. Buster Sword in hand, Cloud trudges off towards Midgar.

Cloud undergoes a transformation due to the combined trauma caused by the Nibelheim incident, his Mako poisoning, and witnessing Zack's death. Cloud impresses Zack's memories and fighting abilities into his own, along with Tifa's memories of him and his own ideal image of himself as a SOLDIER, creating a new set of memories with an accompanying persona. What emerges in Cloud's mind is a reality in which he joined SOLDIER and was Sephiroth's partner—Zack did not exist—and in most of Cloud's twisted memories he takes Zack's place. Cloud presents himself in Midgar as a former 1st Class SOLDIER, now a mercenary for hire.

## Powers & Abilities

* **JENOVA Cells & Mako Energy Enhancements:** After Cloud was captured by a scientist that gave him JENOVA cells and Mako Energy which super charged him.
	+ **Supernatural Strength:**
	+ **Supernatural Speed:**
	+ **Supernatural Agility:**
	+ **Supernatural Reflexes:**
	+ **Supernatural Durability:**
	+ **Supernatural Endurance:**
	+ **Enhanced Stamina:**
* **Limit Breaks:** Powerful attacks that Cloud can use after taking damage in battle.
	+ **Braver:** Cloud Strife rushes his opponent and jumps high enough to perform a powerful downward slash attack dealing 3 times the normal damage.
	+ **Cross Slash:** Cloud Strife rushes at his opponent to perform a three-slash attack that deals 3 1/4 times the normal damage. In addition, it also poses a chance to paralyze his opponent.
	+ **Blade Beam:** Cloud Strife raises his blade and slashes from a distance to perform a Blade Beam attack at his opponent of choice that deals 3 and 1/2 times the normal damage, other enemies besides the original target of choice that get caught in the shockwave are dealt with normal damage. Despite this attack being calculated by Cloud Strife's physical stats, it is considered a magical attack.
	+ **Climhazzard:** Cloud Strife will strike his opponent of choice and jumps upwards running the sword along with his opponent thus dealing 4 and 3/8 times the normal amount of damage.
	+ **Meteorain:** Cloud Strife jumps and swings his sword in mid-air to conjure six meteors that can hit random enemies (or all six on one single enemy) dealing 1 and 5/8 times the normal damage per meteor.
	+ **Finishing Touch:** Cloud Strife raises his sword as a shining light is flashed overhead, he then swings this light onto a group of enemies which turns into a tornado that picks up his enemies thus lifting them up high to the point where either it will result as "Instant Kill" or 3 and 1/8 times the normal damage if such opponents are proven to be immune to instant-death attacks or specifically mentioned otherwise.
	+ **Omnislash:** The most powerful Limit Break for Cloud Strife within Final Fantasy VII, he falls into a state of complete focus charging up then performs a 15 combo slash attack on random enemies/targets near-by or a single opponent with each attack dealing 3 and 3/4 the normal damage per hit.
		- **Omnislash Version 5:** As seen in Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, this is an upgraded version of Cloud Strife's original Omnislash Limit Break, he separates his Fusion Sword into several different components thus resulting Cloud Strife to perform a 13 slash combo at his opponent.

## Weapons & Equipment

* **Broadswords:**
	+ **Buster Sword:** Cloud's signature weapon. A large broadsword with two linked materia slots. A long sword with double sided blade.
	+ **Mythril Saber:**
	+ **Hardedge:**
	+ **Butterfly Edge:**
	+ **Enhance Sword:**
	+ **Organics:**
	+ **Crystal Sword:**
	+ **Force Stealer:**
	+ **Rune Blade:**
	+ **Murasame:**
	+ **Nail Bat:**
	+ **Yoshiyuki:**
	+ **Apocalypse:**
	+ **Heaven's Cloud:**
	+ **Ragnarok:**
	+ **Ultima Weapon:** The most powerful sword in Cloud's arsenal. It has eight linked Materia slots, and it deals more damage to the enemy if Cloud's health is full.
	+ **Fusion Sword:** A set of six swords that merge into one larger sword that is very reminiscent of the Buster Sword, and it replaces the Buster Sword as Cloud's primary weapon at some point after the events of Final Fantasy VII.
* **Various Armors:**
	+ **Ziedrich:** Has a defensive strength of 100%, a magic defensive strength of 98%; leads to a 20% power increase and halves damages; Requires 0 materia slots.
* **Various Accessories:**
	+ **Ribbon:** Grants immunity to status ailments including burn, ice, poison, etc.
* **Various Materia:** Crystalized Mako that Cloud can equip onto his weapons & armor to allow him to cast magic spells, or even use Materia without a weapon (despite how the games work). (See full list Here)

* **Fenrir:**

## Feats

### Strength

* Is strong enough to hurt large monsters with his buster sword.
* Can slice through large machines, skyscrapers and large monsters.
* Can scale an entire skyscraper in a single leap.
* Killed the enormous Ultima Weapon.
* Attacked Sephiroth hard enough to indent the metal they are standing on when he blocks
* Pushed Sephiroth through multiple floors of a building
* Threw Sephiroth after being stabbed hard enough to break machinery on the wall
* Can overpower Reno and Rude, who survived being in the epicenter of an explosion (150 Kilotons)
* Can harm Jenova, who survived a meteor impact (19 megatons)
* *Comparable to Tifa, who can suplex Diamond Weapon (327 Megatons - 1.3 Gigatons)*
* Easily surpasses lesser summons such as Odin and Bahamut Zero who both manage to part a lot of clouds (2 teratons and 301 petatons respectively)
* Fought the Weapons, who can create earthquakes with their awakening (20 teratons) and make massive craters (351 petatons)
* The strength of the average materia is around 48 teratons-760 teratons
* One-shot Bahumut SIN
* Comparable to Sephiroth who can casually make a massive storm (14.2 petatons)
* Comparable to Zack Fair, who scales to Bahamut Fury’s Exaflare blowing up an entire moon (31 yottatons)
* Comparable to Vincent Valentine, whose clash with Omega created an explosion that dispersed clouds (16 exatons)
* Well above the Turks who can battle Zirconiade, the strongest summon in the series.
* On par with the cast of Tactics at their endgame (and in the case of Luso and Balthier: their post-game)
* On par with multiple characters in Dissidia, including:
	+ Wife of Darkness, who intended to devour both the World of Light and Darkness
	+ Exdeath, who was able to harness the power of the Void
	+ Ultimecia, who wanted to compress all of time and space into herself

### Speed

* Dodged Lightning Bolts.
* Can keep up with Sephiroth, who greatly outspeeds Zack Fair and the FTL Bahamut Fury.
* Can deflect and cut through energy blasts and bullets.
* Blitzed Sephiroth with version six Omnislash.
* Dodged automatic fire from a machine gun.
* Blocked and avoided bullets, then blocked some more while fighting someone else
* Blocked even more bullets from a closer range, fight two people mid-air, then blocked bullets again as he recovers
* Even more close-range bullet blocking
* Can avoid arrows in Final Fantasy Tactics, a game where weaker bows can shoot arrows as fast as lightning (Around Mach 280)
* Dodged Rufus' Bright Lights laser attack
* *Comparable to Sephiroth, who can telekinetically move clouds (Mach 444.91) and attack at the speed of light*
* Comparable to Bahamut Zero, who can fly across the planet (Mach 4688)
* Comparable to Typhon, who flipped the planet with his telekinesis (0.12 c)
* Comparable to Vincent, who can outspeed Omega Weapon, who can fly into space (0.19 c)
* The aforementioned Bahumut Fury can fly between solar systems (17,828,728 c)
* Comparable to Red XIII who’s limit break can call energy from the stars (65,900,000 c)
* *Keeps up with Sephiroth, who can manipulate the comet that causes Supernova (7,503,713,688,000 c - 20.571 trillion c)*

### Durability

* Survived Sephiroth's implements and manages to shrug it off, and carried on fighting him for 12 hours straight.
* Survived a fall from a Mako reactor to the lower levels of the city.
* Was able to go through Bahamut Sin's blast without much damage.
* Survived Hojo's experimentation
* Can endure sword strikes, energy blasts, bullets, powerful magic attacks and supernova-like explosions to the face.
* Took a solid hit and doesn't slow down fighting
	+ The attack was capable of this in the same fight
* Shot in the face and doesn't suffer much damage. Most likely the goggles deflected the bullet to some degree
* Survived this long fall
* Kicked far and hard enough to go through concrete and stands back up to keep fighting
* Stabbed through the chest by Sephiroth again
* After being stabbed is conscious and able to stand back up after being stabbed multiple times and thrown back to the ground
* *Tanked Sephiroth’s Supernova to the face (7.629 KiloFoe - 178 MegaFoe)*
* Survived a fall into the lifestream while mentally incapacitated, which should have killed him by destroying his physical body

### Skill

* Defeated Sephiroth and Jenova multiple Times.
* Killed Bahamut SIN.
* Killed all sorts of monsters in his life, like Lost Number, Materia Keeper, Bottomswell, Red Dragon, Schizo, and many other monstrosities.
* Managed to defeat Sephiroth when he was going insane with zero Mako enhancements
* Committed ecoterrorism
* Ridiculously skilled with a motorcycle.
* Defeated Kadaj.
* Faced the Shinra corporation and their many, many mechs
* Slayed the many forms of Jenova
* Fought Hojo and many of his genetic experiments such as Unknown Entities and Type-0 Behemoth
* Faced Shinra’s special investigation team: The Turks
* Destroyed WEAPONS, giant bio-mechanical engines of destruction that exist to protect the planet
* Defeated God Sephiroth and saved Midgar
* Helped Ramza fight the Catholic Church and kill the Lucavi demons, and this was when he lost his memory and was weakened due to the Lifestream
* Teamed up with many Final Fantasy protagonists to help Cosmos fight Chaos and his army of Final Fantasy villains

## Weaknesses

* While a smart and skilled fighter in his own right, tends to prefer overpowering his foes through sheer brute strength over tactical magic attacks.
* Seems to suffer from PTSD, stemming from his failures to prevent the deaths of Zack and Aerith, as well as the destruction of his hometown.
* Rather brash and quick to anger.
* His characterization post-FFVII by Square Enix.
* Hot headed.
* Fights at his best with a group.
* Armor isn't very good.