Aerith Gainsborough

Aerith Gainsborough is a playable character in Final Fantasy VII. She uses a staff as her weapon and wears a pink ribbon in her hair. Due to a mistranslation in the original English translations, she is sometimes know as Aeris Gainsborough.

Story
Aeris is the last of the race of people know as the Cetra (or Ancient), and because of this is being tracked down by Shin-ra and the Turks. Her mother is Ifalna. When Professor Gast (Ifalna's lover and Aeris' father) was killed, Ifalna escaped and went to Midgar. Once at Midgar, Ifalna died, and Aeris was adopted by Elmyra Gainsborough.

She joins the party as Cloud Strife and AVALANCHE are leaving Midgar to fight Sephiroth. Because she is an Ancient she is constantly being hunted by Shinra.

Aeris is killed by Sephiroth at the Ancient City just as she activates the materia Holy, which she inherited from her mother, Ifalna.

Level 1
Restores a partial amount of HP to the entire party.
 * Healing Wind

Casts the silence and stop status temorarily on opponents.
 * Seal Evil

Level 2
Restores bad status alignments cast upon the party.
 * Breath of the Earth

While sacrificing her own limit Aerith grants the two other party members a full limit gauge.
 * Fury Brand

Level 3
Temporarily makes the party invincible
 * Planet Protector

Fully restores the party's HP and cures bad status alignments.
 * Pulse of Life

Level 4
Aerith's final and ultimate limit break fully restores HP and bad status alignments the party may have and makes the party invicible for a short time.
 * Great Gospel

Advent Children
Aeris is in the CGI-movie Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. She appears, at a few points of the movie, to Cloud in a vast space of light, usually without background (presumably the Lifestream.) She eventually convinces Cloud to forgive himself via these meetings---she even manages to leave a message on his cell phone telling him that his coming for her was all that really mattered (the message is the last one on the phone before it hits the bottom of the lake.) Throughout these meetings the audience can only see the bottom half of her face, and it is not until the ending sequence that her full facial features are revealed.

Other Information

 * Aerith is the first and last person to be seen in the game (before the credits).