Author's Notes: I'm excited to be posting this chapter. I've been writing non-stop on a lot of my stories because I want to get them out there already! I hope you've all been reading and enjoying. Please don't forget to review!

And important note is to know that YES I DO KNOW THERE ARE TWO ZACKS IN THIS STORY. You'll find out why in future chapters. So keep reading and reviewing and someday, we'll make it to that point.


Full Summary: They were both misfits belonging on polar opposite worlds. When they meet in the middle, they decide to do the ultimate act of defiance…they decided to switch themselves. By doing so they entered a bond stronger than any magic that would lead the world as they know it to end. But this is a story about their love and the powerful bond that lead one demon to be turned into an angel and an angel to demon.

Disclaimer: I do not own FFVII but I do own this story.


In the Underworld, Tifa was gritting her teeth. She had previously been enjoying her day at the castle's library, sitting in a dark velvet chair with a candle next to her reading in the dimly light room when her brother came in. Her ruby eyes watched him as he grandly sunk into a nearby chair facing her. Her fingers tightened unnecessarily on her book. She just knew she wasn't going to like what Sephiroth had to say.

For a few brief moments, there was silence. The servants closed the doors to the library, effectively sealing Tifa and her eldest brother in the room together. She was tempted to just break open the door anyways but knew that she would probably be punished for such defiance to the Demon King. Since it didn't look like Sephiroth was going to speak anytime soon, Tifa decided to break the silence herself.

"May I help you, brother?"

He smirked, flashing gleaming white teeth. Even from her seat ten feet away, she could see the fangs that glinted in the dim lights. Tifa closed her book and managed to set it down on the side table next to her without slamming it too hard. She didn't reply for a while, merely crossed her legs and sat up straighter.

"I have a few things I wish you to do for me." The silver haired demon answered. Despite the fact that he said "wish", there was still a blatant demand in the sentence he so elegantly stated. Tifa's fingers crossed her arms across her chest to keep him from seeing how her fingers tightened into a fist.

Her mind quickly flashed through several options for what he would want her to do. There were many things he could command her to do that she would not like. Things like going to collect demonic taxes [which isn't at all easy because demons were greedy creatures for god's sakes and wouldn't give up anything of theirs] or going to boring demonic meetings which often erupted into fights. Her mind ran through several instances of things her Demon King brother would demand of her but none of them came close to what he actually asked of her.

"I would like it if you went to the Middle Ground."

"The what?" She shouted, eyes widening in shock.

Sephiroth only nodded in response, patient and slow as if eh was explaining a math concept to a young child. "That meeting is tonight and I would like it if you went in my place."

Tifa sat back in her chair, contemplating. The meeting her brother was talking about was one in which the rulers of the Underworld and the Above came together in the Middle Ground, otherwise known as Earth to discuss rules in keeping the balance. Thousands of years fighting and hating had only led to some sort of truce. There was still battles that erupted between the two species and even those had certain boundaries that ensured there would be no full fledged war breaking out.

How hard could it be? After all, the rules that have been agreed upon had hardly changed throughout the hundreds of years it has been implemented. So the Demon King's sister simply shrugged in response and he took it for a yes. As the Demon King got up from his chair and prepared to leave, Tifa's voice stopped him before his hand touched the door knob.

"Sephiroth?" Eyes narrowed, he looked behind his shoulder in response. His glare didn't disturb her whatsoever.

"What do I wear in the presence of God?"

He laughed at her. His amused deep rumble that still resonated with evil echoed throughout the room. A pale silver eyebrow cocked up. "You don't dress up when you come to see me, dear sister."

The Princess of the Dark Moon gave him a cheeky smile. "You're rarely that special to me, brother."

He ignored her and simply reminded her to complete the Trade. The trade was exchange of angels or demons. Sacrificial lambs as Vincent called them. They were merely a formality, a way to project the sense that there was peace. Once that was completed, demons and angles would continue to find ways to fight each other in the Middle Ground so long as they were somewhat discreet about it.

As Tifa rose in an attempt to follow her brother out the door, Sephiroth stopped her.

"Tifa?"

"Yes?"

"I have one more task for you." His long pale fingers brought up a small blue orb and sent it ghosting down to her. "This is your next prey. Find it and kill it while you're at the Middle Ground, just ensure that God doesn't find out."

Her gut clenched. This was the bad news she had been expecting. This was a challenge and a demand to kill. With her emotionless mask on, Tifa reached out to grasp the small glowing orb. A piece of someone's soul as a scent for a predator to track it by. The orb glowed and the warmth spread across her body like laughter or sunshine. Tifa didn't respond and simply walked on towards her room. She didn't have to, there was no such thing as rejection against the Demon King.

Tifa decided to wear a simple black and white cocktail dress and tall leather black boots. Walking over to the far eastern side of the Underworld, where the magic was at its "weakest", she met Zack. He was the epitome of a male demon with sinful beauty. Zack was a tall man but his long spiky black locks gave him the illusion of further height. He wore all dark clothes and sometimes when Tifa came to meet him, she only looked for the glow of his eyes to know he was there against the bleak background. Exchanging smiles, he got to work.

Zack was an irreplaceable demon. Tifa thinks that even if Sephiroth tried to find a replacement for Zack, he wouldn't be able to. There were very few demons that could be irreplaceable in a world where things filtered in and out like a ghost passing through walls. One moment they existed and the next they didn't. Zack had been in the Underworld for as long as anyone could remember. He guarded the weakest point of magical strength in the Underworld and he opened portals to the Middle Ground.

When the blurry lines started to appear, Tifa knew it was time. And with that, she slipped into the portal like water through rocks in a river. In a blink, the demon princess was gone.


White is never a comforting color to Cloud. His entire landscape growing up was a small selection of white, cream, and all other "shades" of white. It represented his home in which he was looked down upon, left alone, and shunned from society. It represented to him the two faced nature of being accepted one moment and rejected the next. He stands there and his eyes remain fixated upon the long length of white marble stairs. The stairs that lead up to his mother, queen of the Above.

"How could you, Cloud? How could you?" Elizabeth shrieked.

The blonde said nothing. His endlessly blue eyes remained fixated on the white stairs before him.

"You are a general, a solider! Your fighting and your killing is to remain on the battlefield! Not on your comrades."

Cloud had to bite his tongue from retorting. His comrades? They were men who sneered at the mere thought of him. To his people, the prince was like a time bomb waiting to happen. A disaster waiting to erupt. They never saw him as more than a tool, something they could use to gain victory. If it came down to it, if he was lying in a pool of his very own blood, they'd be glad he was dying.

"And to think, you nearly killed a fellow angel, Cloud!"

His heart lurched at that. He never meant to hurt. He didn't want to kill. And to know that his own mother even feared him, her own son…stung.

"You need to learn to control The Taint."

Cloud mentally sneered at that. The Taint! He felt like the very bane of his existence was due to that inheritance. The heirs of the throne to The Above hold The Taint. The Taint is the sins of the angels held in a concentrated form. It is symbolic that the rulers of the land hold the burdens of the people. If the person is to overcome The Taint and be able to rule the demonic voice in their minds, they could become the leader. It is part of the markings, the things a higher being angel must deal with in order to rule.

"You won't be able to rule if you can't control The Taint."

"I will rule despite what you wish, mother. I am the proper heir to the throne." He retorted.

Elizabeth sneered at this. She didn't have a chance to respond because the guards opened the door to the chambers and dragged in an angel in the process of being healed. The angel was the person Cloud had fought the day before. He didn't look at him, Cloud didn't need to see him to know the amount of damage he had inflicted on him. Elizabeth slipped back on a detached mask and spoke with a calm and levelheaded voice.

The angel kneeled before the queen and held in any grimaces he might've had from the effort to do so. He kept his head bowed. Cloud remained standing and staring off.

"I had been informed that you had provoked the battle with a challenge."

"Yes, ma'm."

"You clearly know the rules. For breaking such rules, you must be punished."

"I will gladly accept the punishment you give me in order to redeem myself."

Cloud steeled himself for this. His inner Taint voice said, "See how disgusting you are. Being emotionless and without pity to the man who is going to be destroyed. You're a low life Cloud."

Elizabeth only hesitated for a moment before she condemned the angel. "You are to have your wings stripped and sent to Davy Jones locker. When there, you will be sorting out souls to their rightful path for 100 years."

The angel nodded and stood up with as much grace and dignity as he could muster. His brown eyes glared at Cloud with as much hatred an angel could possibly muster before leaving.

"For you, Cloud, your punishment is to go to the Middle Ground. You are to meet with the Demon King in my place tonight."

Oh great.

"You are dismissed."

As he turned to leave the room, his mother's whisper flowed into his ear. It might as well have been shouted across her throne to him. And he tried not to let it hurt but in the end…it felt like a sledgehammer had been dealt to him.

"Everyone says you should've been a demon."


Tifa leaned against the cool metal of the railing. The ruler of The Above was late. She stared at the dark sky stretched out above her, seeing the beauty of the stars. Tifa huffed impatiently. A dim flash of light caught her attention when she spotted it from the corner of her eye. Such lights were unnatural in the Middle Ground, to a being like herself anyways. Out of the light came out a man. The light seemed almost drawn to him even in the middle of the night. He held the appearance of a man she had never seen before in the world. He had unruly golden spiky hair and he was perhaps only one or two shades tanner than she. He wore all white and he was a bit on the thin side but through the material of his clothing, Tifa could sense all the muscles that rippled as he moved.

The man came closer to her. From a short distance away, Tifa could see the glow of his eyes. They were a color she had never seen before and such color sent an excitement through her spine. They were beautiful and captivating. It was exhilarating.

When Sephiroth told her she was going to meet God, she had been expecting a much older man. But the man who stopped and stood in front of her, merely looking at her with such an emotionless face of strong jaw and almost feminine cheeks, looked almost her age. However, in the Underworld and Above, looks are always deceiving.

Cloud looked at the woman in front of him. She was thin with the most sinful curves he had ever seen. Her long raven black hair windblown, the smell of the sea clinging to her skin to his sensitive nose, and the bright stunning ruby eyes that stared back at him. He could sense power in her despite the fact that she almost looked fragile. He could tell she tried to hide it in the way she upheld herself with such rigor. He wondered what caused this delicate beauty to be standing in front of him. All the stories of the Demon King, now he supposed it was only proper to call her Demon Queen, of being a cruel hateful creature didn't seem to be able to grasp the creature in front of her.

They were silent for moments. Neither was what they had expected to meet. A Demon Queen and a young God? They looked far too alike, too much seemingly the same age. Unknowingly, they have many more qualities that made them similar, past appearances and deeper to the soul.

"I'm sorry for my tardiness." Cloud spoke first, breaking the pregnant silence of heavy questions.

"I hadn't expected God to be so late."

Cloud was shocked. God? Someone would think he was God already? He felt excited. Someone thought he was God! A feeling of elation came over him. After a brief moment, logic came back to him. This was a demon after all. One who has probably never seen God before, after all this meeting came only every couple of decades. Perhaps this was a new Demon King as they often changed due to power struggles, although Cloud couldn't recall hearing about a new Demon King.

"God would be a she. I'm her son." Cloud stated, bowing to her slightly, thinking she was the Demon King.

Tifa shook her head and quickly stopped his movements before he could even bend his waist down a little.

"Oh! I'm not the Demon King! I'm the Princess of the Black Moon."

Cloud's eyebrows narrowed in confusion. The princess of the Underworld? What was she doing here?

Before he could say anything further, the beautiful woman with long coal black hair and sad ruby eyes started talking. She was talking a lot for a demon, he had expected someone stoic and cold. But here, the woman in front of him seemed so lively and animated that it seemed like the black wings sprouting from her back were parts of his imagination.

"It's strange that both the heirs to the worlds have come."

Tifa looked at the man next to her. He was very stoic and cold and a shiver ran up her spine. She would never be able to understand what that shiver was out of, pleasure or fear. She shrugged her thoughts away about the blonde man in front of her. Instead she thought about the mission she had been assigned. She'll have to think of ways to trick him later. But for now to distract herself from her own wandering thoughts….

"You were late."

"Pardon me…?"

"I'm Tifa." Tifa answered, looking at him with a small tilt of her head. She has retreated back into her demonic shell.

"I'm Cloud. My apologies for being so late."

And that was how it started. Two heirs from different worlds, opposing worlds, met. It was a silver of uncharted chance that was thrown together. Unexpected and unplanned, without any other ulterior motive. And sometimes, a silver of pure chance thrown together was enough to start something that could change the worlds and hearts and minds.


Author's Notes: I used quite a bit from the original UMB but I actually liked the scene where they meet so I hope you don't mind. This was a very long chapter. A little too long and I hope it was okay. I hope it was more "showing" than "telling" and that for the most part, the tenses were okay. Either way I just hope you all liked it and will review!