Quote Originally Posted by Vivi22 View Post
It's explicitly shown to be Cloud. The other compilation stuff, despite their many flaws, are also consistent on that point. Cloud was one of the soldiers that went with them to Nibelheim, and was shown to be the one guarding the reactor entrance when Zack and Sephiroth go in.

And after Cloud puts his mind and memories back together in the life stream I think it was pretty clear that he was able to sort his real memories from the fake ones at that point. I'm a bit fuzzier on that though. That said, I don't believe his false memories were the result of absorbing memories from Zack. It was just that he was there and when his mind was broken by the events and by the experiments on him later by Hojo, the memories of what he experienced with them got mixed up with his old memories and dream of joining Soldier. That's why he had gaps in his memory when he was telling the story in Kalm. He was missing chunks of what happened because other people experienced them while he wasn't there and he was only told so much by them.
Even still, its a pretty bizarre plot point to begin with. Being "shown" a flashback scene that never actually occurred in reality means the on-screen depiction of the characters is just a recollection, and subject to the same false memories that Cloud experienced.

That aside, is the beast that Sephiroth releases from the canister ever relevant to the story? It was a pretty dramatized scene with the only explanation for this specific action is Sephiroth's emotion or rage.