

He bursts through the door, only to find the people recovering in the aftermath of the Sector 7 Plate's destruction. The ending for the INTERmission DLC threw all of the theories out of the window, as a living Zack is shown traveling to the Sector 5 church in search of Aertih. Cloud stumbles to Midgar, with his memories in disarray, and he is found by Tifa, who brings him into contact with Avalanche, kicking off the events of FF7.

Cloud and Zack are captured by Shinra forces and experimented on by Hojo until Zack manages to break them out, and he almost gets them to Midgar, before he's killed by the Shinra army, as depicted in Crisis Core and possibly its FF7 remake, Reunion. Sephiroth later reveals that Cloud's memories had been tampered with, as he was just a grunt member of the Shinra forces, and he had both his memories and personality confused with that of Zack Fair, an actual member of SOLDIER who was part of the same mission. It's revealed that Cloud Strife isn't who he says he is, as he claimed to be a member of SOLDIER throughout the game and once walked side-by-side with Sephiroth during the ill-fated mission to Nibelheim. The death of Aerith is easily the most iconic moment in FF7 and it overshadows the other big twist in the game.
