[Cloud tilts his head at him and then chuckles quietly.]

The machine on rails is called a train. Guess I've finally found someone from a place more backwater than--

[black helicopters slicing through a sky filled with smoke, modest country houses burning like kindling with families still trapped inside them, and--

It's only for a few seconds that Cloud loses track of what he was saying and presses his fingers against his temple with a wince, and once it passes, he visibly shakes it off.]

...uh, more backwater than me. Probably should have known, what with your clothes.

[Cloud frowns as he listens to Hubert's tale. Branches...possibilities. In one you may live, in another you may die. Is that why Zack insists he didn't die on the cliff, but Cloud and Sephiroth remember it differently? Maybe, somehow, they're all right.]

Yeah. Sounds like it. Actually...it's not the same, but everyone else from my world who's here says they must have uploaded me from an earlier backup. Dunno why.

[Especially since it sounds like future Cloud is a lot more successful and competent.]