i can't believe people are still talking about this. It IS Rufus. Under the cloth, you can see a white suit with a yellow tie (Rufus' outfit), he is named in the credits, he is the only person who we don't SEE die, and Rude is standing next to him in the trailers. What confuses me is you all say he hires Cloud to kill the SHM but in the trailers yazoo (i think all the SHM look alike) is kneeling to rufus. Of course it is probibly a conspiracy to kill cloud and a part of the plot so i won't know until the movie comes out.