Yeah... I can't seem to write about anything but FF lately... I actually got this idea from a dream . . well, enjoy!
All characters in this fanfic don't belong to me, except the bad guys.
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"What is the progress on our project?"
"We are missing one last thing. A human sacrifice."
"Then you'd best get one. Time is running out. we only have ten more days until the day."
"I know. It will be done."
Sunlight poured into the room. Tifa woke up, blinking at the bright light. Sitting up and stretching, she got ready for the day. While she was washing her face she heard a bell from the door. Quickly drying her face, she walked out to see a young man standing in the center of the room. most of his body was covered in a thick cloak, and the hood was over his face.
"What can I get you?" Tifa asked nicely.
"I'm looking for someone named Cloud." he replied.
Tifa instinctively closed her hand into a fist. Whenever someone asked for Cloud, something bad happened. "Never heard of him."
The man smiled, walking over to the bar. "Well that's too bad."
Tifa and the man were now only a few feet away. Only the counter separated the two.
"I guess you'll have to do then." he said, leaping over the counter.
Tifa went into a defensive position, backing away from the man, who merely smiled. With a slight twist of his wrist, a long knife popped out of the sleeve, and he grasped it tightly in his hand. Then, lunging at Tifa, he slashed at her viciously. Tifa skipped back, grabbing his wrist, and kicked him hard in the stomach, followed by a knee to the face. The man didn't even seem to feel it, and came right back at Tifa, slashing, kicking, and punching from all directions. Tifa slowly backed away, blocking most of the attacks. Then, she felt something touch her back. It was the counter.
Quickly dodging another thrust from the knife, she grabbed his wrist again, and kicked him in the face. Once again, it didn't seem to affect him much, but it gave Tifa enough time to vault over the counter into a wider space. Almost as soon as she was on the ground however, the man was right on top of her, landing a hard kick to her chin. Tifa stumbled back, crashing into a table. Her vision swam as the man loomed over her, before everything went dark, and she passed out.
The man smiled as he watched her pass out. replacing the knife in its spot, he picked her up and threw her over his shoulder. Kicking the door open, he walked away from the bar, towards an unknown destination.
When Tifa woke again, it was dark. She wasn't sure if it was because of the room she was in, or because it was actually nighttime. Her hands were cruelly bound behind her back, and her legs were also tied at the ankles.
Where am I? she thought where's that guy from this morning... wait a minute. she stopped to listen for a moment. she could hear a small clicking sound. A train? Who in their right mind would kidnap someone and take a train?
Tifa tried to sit up, but when she did, her head felt like it was going to explode. Instead she remained lying down, going over the events from that morning. A few moments later, a door on the other side of the room opened, allowing light to pour in, partially blinding Tifa. Standing in to doorway was the man who had attacked her this morning. Tifa tried to yell at him, but couldn't. Her mouth had been taped shut.
"Just so you know, even if you could yell, it would be pointless. The only people other than us on the train are all working for me. Now, let us have a little chat."
The man walked over to Tifa, and sat on the floor. Pulling the tape off Tifa's mouth, he looked her in the eyes.
"First allow me to introduce myself. My name is Kenji. And I'm assuming you're Tifa." he said.
"How did you know that?" Tifa asked.
"I know a lot of things. Like the fact that you know Cloud. And that by taking you, he will try to find you. and you see, I need him. He will help us realize something we have never had before."
"What would that be? And who's this us?"
" 'Us', as you put it, is something you will find out soon enough. As for what we want, what do we all want? Power."
"Oh, so you're just another power-hungry psycho that will try to destroy the world?"
"No, we will make it better."
"Sure you will."
Kenji stood up. "Go to sleep. You'll need it."
After a few hours Tifa actually did go to sleep. In her dream, she found herself in a completely white room, as if someone had put too many lights on, and it was drowning out all colors. Tifa wandered aimlessly, not sure what to expect. Suddenly, the lights dimmed, and she found herself in a room that seemed familiar, but she couldn't figure out why. Walking around the edge of the room, she ran her hand along the wall, which had small designs carved onto it. Each one seemed to be something that happened in her life, and some she didn't recognize, and she figured that was what was going to happen to her.
She stopped at a particular set of carvings. In one it showed her fighting with the man, Kenji. Then the next one showed when she woke up on the train, and was speaking with that same man. Down the line it showed other things. She suddenly stopped and stared at one of them again. It showed her, surrounded by hundreds of other people she didn't know. But there was one thing that caught her eye: It looked is if there was someone else with her.
"That can't be right." Tifa said out loud.
"What can't?" replied a voice behind her.
Tifa spun around, and almost cried out. Standing in the center of the room was Aeris, looking the exact same way she did the day she died. Tifa was speechless for a moment, before she found her voice.
"This is just a dream right? It has to be, you're dead." she said quietly.
"Yes, it is a dream, but that doesn't mean it's not real. And just because I'm gone in body doesn't mean I'm gone in spirit. I'm hear to help you." Aeris replied
"How can you help me?"
"You'll see when the time comes. There is one thing you should know however. Right now, you are all alone. The others won't be able to help you with this one. But I have a feeling you'll come through." she walked over and touched the carving that Tifa had been looking at before.
"I don't get it. It doesn't make sense." Tifa said.
"It will. Now it's time for you to wake up." Aeris said, before fading from Tifa's view.
Tifa woke with a start. Looking around, she found herself surrounded by about ten people. The train had stopped, and the windows, which Tifa didn't know were there, had been opened, revealing that it was day time out. Her legs had been unbound, though her arms were still tied. Kenji walked out from the group, grabbing her under the arm and pulling her up.
"Let's go. We still have a little way to go." he said.
They started walking without a word. Tifa was kept in the center of the group, Kenji right beside her. While they were walking, Tifa started working on the rope that tied her wrists together, slowly working one of her hands loose. The others didn't seem to notice, and if they did, they probably wouldn't register it. After all, Tifa was even doubting her odds of being able to fight all of them, especially if they were all like Kenji. Still, she had to try something.
Tifa managed to get one of her hands loose, but kept it inside the loop, waiting for the right moment to try and escape. The group continued to walk at a fast pace. Finally they stopped in front of a cave entrance. They entered in single file, Tifa being kept between Kenji and another of the group.
When they entered in the cave, Tifa was surprise at how light it was, due to the lights that had been placed inside of it. The marched in single file down the tunnel, which branched off multiple times.
I'd better try to get out, before I loose my way. Tifa thought.
Just as Kenji turned a corner, Tifa stopped, removing her hand from the rope. Kicking the man directly behind her in the stomach, she vaulted over him, catching another in the face with a hard kick. Landing firmly on the ground, she punched the last one in the line hard, and began to run back the way they came. She could hear someone following behind her, but didn't look back. Suddenly she felt a pain in her knee as it gave out on her. Looking down, she saw Kenji's knife stuck into the back of her knee. A shadow fell over her as Kenji walked up to her.
"That wasn't very nice." he said.
Kenji kicked Tifa in the stomach, driving the wind out of her. Then, he punched her in the face, knocking her out. He once again lifted her up onto his shoulders, removing his knife from her leg, and walked back down the tunnel.
Once again Tifa found herself in the same room in her dreams. This time she was standing in front of a carving that showed what had just happened. However, this time there was a difference. Instead of it showing just her and Kenji in the picture, it also showed Aeris, watching from afar.
"Dammit, it doesn't make any sense!" Tifa yelled out, waiting for the answer to come, but before it could, she was awake again.
Tifa's head throbbed as she woke up in yet another dark room, though this one she could somewhat see due to the dying light in the room. looking to her left, she saw a plate of food. Tifa grabbed it and started eating the food. Her leg had been healed through some sort of magic. She rubbed her leg where the knife had entered, then moved her hand down to her feet. She felt a slight bulge in the side of her shoe, and smiled to herself. They hadn't searched her after all.
Tifa removed her shoe and pulled out a small circular object from it. It was a tracking device, one that she never turned on unless she was in danger. When triggered, it was picked up in two locations. Her home, and in Cid's airship. Flipping the tracker on, she placed it back into her shoe, making sure that it wouldn't be able to be seen unless they removed her shoe. She then settled down, and waited for someone to get her. It wasn't long before she was sleeping again.
Like all her dreams recently, Tifa was back in that same room, only this time the pictures had changed drastically. In every picture, Aeris was right beside Tifa. But one thing didn't change, and that was that no one else friendly was with her. She was truly alone on this one. On a whim, Tifa went backwards, looking at the other pictures from before. It now seemed that all of them had Aeris in it.
"What's going on here?" Tifa called out. But again, there was no response. "Dammit, I must be going crazy."
Tifa paced around the room in her mind, looking from picture to picture, seeing everything that had happened in her life, and what hadn't happened yet. Finally she just gave up. She punched the wall. The wall cracked where she hit it. Looking up, she noticed that the picture she had hit was the same picture from before, the one that showed her surrounded by hundreds of people.
Tifa woke up again surrounded by people she didn't know, only this time there was a lot more, and Kenji wasn't with them. They motioned that she was to go with them. Standing up, she walked along with them. They went even deeper into the cave, until they came to a door. One of the men stopped for a moment, before pushing the door open.
Standing in the center was Kenji, along with another person that Tifa hadn't met. The other one was shorter than the rest, but other than that, not much could be told about the person, even if it was male or female.
"Well, seeing as Cloud probably isn't going to show up any time soon, we'll have to use you for our purposes."
Tifa was pushed towards Kenji. Grabbing her by the arms, Kenji dragged her over to a large altar. It was really just a block of stone, with chains that were obviously meant to bind the person to it. Tifa was placed on the altar, so that her head was on the top. The chains bound her hands to it, leaving her completely helpless.
"I assume I'm a sacrifice." Tifa said dryly.
"Yes, one that will change the face of the world." Kenji replied, moving so that he was directly behind her.
Kenji had his knife held firmly in his hand. Leaning over Tifa, he held it at her throat. Tifa closed her eyes, hoping that something would happen. Just as Kenji lifted the blade to stab her, there was a crash, and the door burst open. Standing in the doorway was Cloud. From behind him a large windmill shuriken spun out, aimed directly at the altar. It hit where the chains connected, breaking them. This was followed by a gunshot, hitting the knife in Kenji's hand, causing it to spin wildly, sticking into the wall.
From behind Cloud Yuffie, Vincent, and Cid emerged. The other members of the cult turn to face them, and the four prepared to fight them all. There was a moment of complete silence, before they turned back to the center. The others also abandoned their fighting stances when they saw what was going on.
Standing in the center of the mass of people was Tifa, Kenji, and the other unknown person. Tifa bunched her hands into fists as she circled slowly. Kenji followed her progress, but the other person stood still. Finally, with a small nod, it backed away, leaving Tifa and Kenji alone in the center. Kenji smirked, adopting a fighting stance of his own. Both stood still for a moment, then charged each other at the same time.
Both of their attacks hit at the same time. Tifa had attempted a kick to the face, and Kenji tried for a punch to the same area. The two attacks met in the middle, blocking each other. Kenji then punched with his other hand, landing a blow to the back of her knee, then slammed her to the ground. Tifa kicked him in the stomach on the way down, wrapping her legs around his waist, and pulling him up and over her, sending him flying towards a wall. Landing on the wall with his hands, Kenji firmly placed his feet on the ground. Tifa took and running start, and jumped, slamming her foot into the back of Kenji, which slammed him into the wall. Tifa then unleashed a series punches and kicks, each one driving him farther into the wall, until finally, a crack went up the wall to the ceiling.
It wasn't until then that Tifa broke off her attack. As she backed away, Kenji slumped to the ground. His face had been beaten in. Tifa smiled, but not for long. Kenji stood up again, his face still smashed in, and turned to Tifa. Right in front of her eyes, Kenji's face began to reconstruct itself, until his face was exactly the way it had been before. Cracking his neck slightly, Kenji looked at a shocked Tifa and smiled.
"Do you really think it would be that easy?" he said, while at the same time attacking again.
Kenji's attack was relentless. Striking high, then low, and sometime both at the same time, Tifa just couldn't keep up to it. The attacks were so strong that each time he hit, he cut her. Bones literally broke upon impact of the strikes, and by the time Kenji broke off, one of her arms hung loosely at her side, her other was cradling her broken ribs, and she wasn't able to put any weight on her right leg.
Tifa collapsed on the ground, breathing heavily, and finally passed out. She didn't seem to be breathing, and her heart was barely beating. Kenji grabbed her by the hair and dragged her towards the edge, which fell off a sheer cliff. Swinging her over, he held her by her hair over the cliff.
Inside Tifa's mind, she wasn't hanging over a cliff, inches from death. Instead she was in the setting of her dreams of late, only the walls were bare. Tifa stood in the center of the room, confused.
This can't be real. I'm either dreaming, or dead. she thought.
Then, she heard footsteps behind her. Turning, she saw a group of people, though she knew they couldn't be real, seeing as they were all dead, some of them dieing in front of her. Most of them she didn't know, but there were a few she knew one way or another. Standing in the center of them was Aeris, who walked towards Tifa.
"Am I dead?" she asked.
"Not yet. But your time has come, I'm afraid." Aeris replied sadly.
Tifa felt her legs give out on her. Slumping to the floor, Tifa sighed.
"Well, not much I can do about it." she said.
Aeris almost looked amused. "I didn't take you for one to give up so easily. You were supposed to die over two years ago, so really, we can't tell when someone's going to die anymore."
"Then why the hell am I dreaming about dead people when I'm in the middle of a fight?"
Aeris crouched down and looked Tifa in the eyes. Then, she placed her hand on Tifa's chest, over her heart. Tifa felt a sudden warmth come over her, starting from her heart, and reaching along her arms and legs, up to her head, and even felt it in her hair. Then, the world became dark.
In the real world, Tifa started to cough suddenly, to the surprise of the onlookers. Her heart began to beat at a normal tempo, and her body began to repair itself. By the time Tifa fully came to, her bones were mended as if they were never broken, her cuts healed, leaving only the tiniest trace of a scar. But the one major difference, which caught most of them off guard, Kenji most of all, was the eyes. Her right eye was the same, but her left eye had changed color, as if there were two people sharing one body.
Tifa also felt this way. She felt like she was carrying some sort of extra weight, but one that helped her rather than hindered. Flexing her hands, she punched Kenji in the face. There was a sickening crunch, and Kenji's nose spurted blood. Kenji instinctively let go of Tifa, which made her start to fall. But it made no difference. Sliding her foot along the wall of the cliff, Tifa pushed off, flipping up, and land directly beside Kenji.
"Now, where were we?" Tifa said, her voice even sounding different than it was before. It almost sounded like two voices talking at once.
Tifa punch Kenji in the face again, and again, and kept doing it repeatedly until finally Kenji fell down. Backing off, Tifa waited for Kenji to get back up. Stumbling to his feet, he wiped some blood from his mouth, glaring at Tifa.
"You're dead." he said.
Kenji lunged at Tifa, punching and kicking quickly. He was attacking so fast that his limbs were a blur. But not one punch, not a single kick, landed anywhere on Tifa. Backpedaling and dodging the attacks, Tifa led Kenji along the summit of the cliff, until she was at the spot she wanted to be. On one side was the cliff, and on the other was a stack of boxes that had been there before. One of the boxes, standing alone, was about waist high on Tifa. On Kenji's last punch, Tifa blocked it, grabbed him by the arm, and quickly used it as a springboard, flipping up onto the top of the box. With the momentum from the flip, Tifa forced herself into a quick spin. Using the momentum from that, she jumped off the box, still spinning. Timing it perfectly, she caught Kenji, who had been charging her, in the chin with a hard spinning kick. The kick was so forceful, that Kenji was knocked flying. He spun wildly, until his back hit the wall on the other side of the cliff, some 20 feet away. There was a snap that could only have been his spine, and Kenji slid off the wall into the chasm of the cliff, lifeless eyes staring down into the black void.
Tifa landed on one foot, slamming her other foot to the ground to stop her spin. Her head was bent down, so that she was looking at the ground, and she was breathing heavily, as if she had just ran a marathon. Slowly she raised her head, her hair falling over one eye, and stared out at the other members of the cult. They all stood with their heads bent, avoiding eye contact with her. All but the one that had been standing in the middle with Kenji. Tifa saw the glint of red from the person's eye, which was clearly female. She smirked slightly, before turning around and walking towards the smashed door. Cloud held his sword up, ready to attack her.
"Let them go." Tifa said suddenly.
Cloud relaxed his stance, and let the people walk by him. When they had all left, Tifa collapsed to her knees, and breathed a sigh of relief. She closed her eyes, and slept.
Tifa stood in a large field. Standing opposite of her was Aeris.
"Thank you for helping me." Tifa said.
"Don't worry, there'll be much more. By allowing you to live when you should have died, my spirit has been bonded to your body. I don't leave until you leave." Aeris replied.
Aeris walked over to Tifa, and touched her hand lightly. There was a small glow, and when it died down, Tifa had a small tattoo on her hand. It was part of the picture from her dreams, the one that showed her surrounded by hundreds of other people. It was the section that showed her, standing side by side with Aeris.
Tifa woke up in the airship, with Cloud and Yuffie sitting at the side.
"It's about time you woke up." Yuffie said suddenly. "It's been two days."
Tifa smiled sleepily. "Really? Feels like two minutes."
Tifa stood up and stretched. She walked out of the room, and looked out one of the windows. They were flying above the clouds, and the sun had settled just above them. The clouds were tinted pink from it, and it looked beautiful. Tifa stood and stared at it for a moment, before she looked at her hand, and gasped.
There on her hand was the picture of her, standing beside Aeris.
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Yay, the first part is done! goes into 60's commentary mode Who is this mysterious woman with the red eyes? What is the cult's function? More importantly, what's it called?(If you have suggestions for this, put them in your reviews . ) And finally, how will Aeris's spirit being bonded with Tifa affect Tifa? All this and more in the next part of this story! (Review please? I'll love you forever and ever and ever...)
