[Shadow5YA]

Originally Posted by Kanon

Spoiler for Ending:

Nanaki literally says "Aerith" right as she walks by him.

And Aerith is still there after the Tiny Bronco takes off and Cloud is long gone. The shots where she disappears is to make it clear the other party members don't see her, that's all.

I'd like to point towards Nojima's description of Tifa's character and her strained relationship with Cloud.

He talks about how Tifa had reservations about Avalanche at first, but she stays because she grows increasingly worried about Cloud and has no idea what he's thinking. Her prying gets increasingly antagonistic, which is what leads to her conflict with Cloud.

Keep that in mind with how their relationship is at the end of this game.

Spoiler:

If what you say is true - that Aerith was there whenever Cloud saw her there, then that means Cloud's perception is correct, Tifa is the asshole, and that invalidates his breakdown and redemption later in the story.

The reason why Sephiroth was able to break Cloud in the original later in the story is because Tifa's reaction was there to validate that Sephiroth's depiction of the Nibelheim incident was true (i.e. Zack was the SOLDIER, not Cloud).. If Cloud wasn't proven wrong, he wouldn't have started to doubt himself enough to believe that he was Sephiroth's clone.
It's the fact that Cloud's lies caught up with him that leads him to break down, then own up to it later.

Sephiroth has to own Cloud with an event that an eyewitness can verify whether it's true or not. In original, that was Tifa and Nibelheim incident, but in this remake he can just as easily use the entire party against Cloud by showing Aerith's death.
If Cloud's perception is correct, then he has no reason to start believing Sephiroth.