Cloud only just came back to Radiant Garden today, and so far he's managed to avoid the usual chorus of 'maybe you could stay a while this time, Cloud?' from his friends. They don't get it. He's tried to explain - Sephiroth is out there because of him. He's Cloud's responsibility. He could be dragging some unsuspecting world into the darkness right now for all they know, and all those souls lost would be Cloud's fault.

But they tell him he's being too hard on himself, and he shouldn't take everything onto his own shoulders, and why can't they fight alongside him? He could tell them the whole truth - that Sephiroth isn't just a manifestation of the darkness in his heart, but his actual, literal Heartless. He could tell them he spent most of his time away from them as a mere husk of himself, single-minded and unable to care that he abandoned them. That he fell to the darkness so thoroughly that he'd lost his heart entirely for a while.

He won't, though.

Instead, he goes out on patrol alone before he even bothers visiting the castle. He knows he shouldn't. He knows it's a dick move not to tell them he's here right away. But if he did, he'd have to tell them he couldn't find Sephiroth and has come home a failure, and he just wants to...put that off, for as long as he can.

Which is why it's easy for Sephiroth to spot the familiar blond where he crouches, perched on a ridge that overlooks the ravine. Keeping watch.