I had tried slapping a ton of Counter Materias on Cloud with a x4 Cut and Barrier Materia, and the Life(/Force?) Stealer, and Zack still beat Cloud into dust. I dunno if I'll bother with beating Zack with how excessively powerful he is for a 1v1, and Cloud is, more often than not, dead weight when I'm forced to use him, compared to just about any other character. (Pretty pretty please consider letting us throw Cloud in the trash upon leaving Midgar in the final version of NT)
With everything (but the Zack Flashback) completed, I finally took on Sephiroth. Oddly enough, Pinnacle Sephiroth only wanted me to put together one team instead of 3. Very nice fight, keeping me on my toes the whole time. Keter Sephiroth is honestly laughable, much like Safer Sephiroth. A crippling weakness to Holy and low defense (Cid and Red were almost always hitting for 9999 with x4 Cut, and Long Range on Cid and Red proved useful here), and he was down pretty quickly. Cloud being the forced dead weight he always is in my run just slowed down the fight. Had I been able to use Aerith instead of Cloud, Aerith W-Casting Quad-Holy would've obliterated Kater Sephiroth even faster (yes, I could've done this with Cloud, but Cloud can't heal the gang's MP to full with a Slash All on the party)