Since the Fall of Man: Taking Responsibility

Author's Note: So it's been a little while! Thank you so much to kikofreako for beta'ing and keeping an eye on me as I write this!

So, uh, don't lynch me. Please.


Leon walked out of the hotel the next morning not sure what to expect. He'd gotten up earlier than usual so he could make sure everything was prepared; his old routine from Hollow Bastion came right to him as if he'd never missed a day. Fifty sit-ups, fifty push-ups, a jog around the district and running through his forms with Lionheart, which all just made him realize how rusty he'd gotten over the last months. No matter, he'd improve with the fighting here.

Hakim was there waiting for him, just like he'd said. Sitting on his haunches and keeping an eye over the first district, the man looked different and it took Leon a second to realize what it was. Instead of the clothes he was wearing yesterday (clean and almost dressy shirt and pants), now he was wearing jeans and a canvas jacket - clothes you didn't mind getting dirty. It seemed the difference between a civilian and a soldier could be as simple as clothing. The rifle slung over his back even seemed to gleam differently.

"Good morning, Leon," was Hakim's quiet greeting and Leon nodded in response. "Shall we go?"

The two men began walking, away from the hotel and towards the second district. They received nods from the people passing by (a good few less around than yesterday afternoon) and the way they looked at them reminded Leon of something. As Hakim led him, Leon tried to find the memory.

He knew it was back in Hollow Bastion, after he'd passed his SeeD exam and was wearing his uniform for the first time. Following Captain Auron from the training campus to the SeeD headquarters was a trek of a couple kilometers through the town. That day, Leon remembered it being early afternoon when they passed through, which meant the town was full of people going about their business. At the time, it was extremely uncomfortable trying to ignore everyone stopping to watch him go by but after a little while, Leon realized they weren't staring because they thought he looked funny. They were looking... proud. Happy, even.

And that was almost how they were looking at him now. Nobody knew him, but suddenly it was like he was almost fourteen again, following Captain Auron where everyone could see him dressed up as the newest member of SeeD. There might be no one else in town who knew what SeeD was, but all he needed was his gunblade at his hip and accompanying a well-known citizen and all of a sudden, Leon was a beloved soldier.

They didn't even know him but he felt just as much trust from them as from the people back home. It was humbling and terrifying at the same time. Did they know he let everyone die on Hollow Bastion? Could they tell he'd failed...? Best put it out of his mind while they seemed to have no firm opinion yet.

"Where are we going?" wondered Leon as they entered the second district.

Hakim looked over his shoulder. "The sewers."

Leon frowned. "Not that I have delusions of grandeur, but why there?"

This time Hakim smiled a little. "It's not as disgusting as it sounds. It's the waterway that extends below the entire town and it's quite large. In my time here, I don't believe anyone's ever encountered the pipes that connect to the actual waterworks."

"Oh."

He must have still looked hesitant because Hakim reassured him. "You won't mind when we get there, I'm sure."

Leon followed Hakim through the center square of the second district and into the alleyways between the houses on the far side. The narrow passages put him in the mind of rats in a maze before they opened up into wide back lanes that could have been streets in themselves. Just when Leon thought they were getting uncomfortably close to the doorway to the third district, he saw a shallow trough filled with water leading to an opening in the side of the town's stone wall. The bars that once prevented entrance were broken and twisted, large enough for humans to get through.

"Here we are," said Hakim. "Before we go in, just a small... debriefing, if you will."

Leon stopped walking and gave him full eye contact. As he talked, Hakim unslung the rifle from his shoulder and did last minute checks; making sure it was loaded, looking it over for significant scratches or dents, opening it up to see if the smaller mechanisms were in their correct positions. The activity created an informal mood for Hakim's explanation.

"We'll be starting off slowly, which is why we're here. This place is more or less ignored by the big and especially strong ones, but small ones find their way in all the time. So once you don't need me or Chikere around to hold your hand, you can come here to train, warm up, or even blow off some steam if you feel the need." Leon snorted quietly at the idea he needed someone to hold his hand and crossed his arms; Hakim ignored it and continued to fiddle.

"We won't be here for long today, for a couple of reasons. The first reason is that no matter what shape you're in or how ready you feel, I'd lay down munny this is the first time you've decided to fight Heartless. I don't mean the first time fighting Heartless - " Hakim looked up from his gun for a second to give Leon a quelling glance. " - but going out to fight them when you have the choice not to. It's different; it's simply not a good idea for someone to battle all day when you're not used to it, no matter how well you know how to use that sword."

Leon didn't bother to explain the difference between a sword and his gunblade.

"The second reason is that we're in a lull in terms of Heartless activity. Actually, more than a lull," he corrected himself, "it's an all-time low. There aren't that many Heartless to fight. We're not naïve enough to believe they're ever going to go away but, if we're vigilant, we can keep their numbers down. So!" Hakim slapped the hinge on the barrel closed, apparently finished checking his rifle. "You have good timing, or else you're just lucky."

Leon nodded and unsheathed Lionheart, pulling back the hammer of the gun segment right above the hilt. "Alright."

Hakim returned the nod and lifted his gun. "Shall we?" He led the way into the so-called sewers, stepping without faltering, letting the barrel of the rifle rest in the crook of his opposite arm.

It wasn't dark like Leon had expected as he stepped, taking the rear guard as Hakim covered point. At some point, someone had set up torches and lights all around the cavern. The place seemed to battle with itself, soft light filling some areas invitingly and yet other corners marked by jagged rocks and deep shadows.

"That looks welcoming," said Leon sardonically, nodding his head at the especially dark places.

Hakim shrugged. "It's better than being here without any light at all. But you're right to watch the shadows."

"Who put up these lights, anyway?" It was odd; most of them weren't torches of fire, but they weren't electric, either...

He saw Hakim throw him an amused look out of the corner of his eye. "I don't recall you being so talkative in the last couple days. Are you normally so verbose?" Leon snorted and shook his head. Hardly.

"Ah, then I guess curiosity has won the day. A man named Merlin put them here; he's responsible for a lot of the light around Traverse Town. I'm sure you'll meet him at some point."

Suddenly, Leon stiffened when bright yellow eyes popped out of a crevice in front of him. Automatically, he lifted his blade to parry the Shadow's claws and swung back at it, but it twisted oddly and managed to dodge. Leon stepped back a pace to give a little room and watched it carefully, not completely taken by surprise when the Shadow seemed to melt into the ground and twisted along the ground until it was beneath him. With a short hiss, he sidestepped it (albeit clumsily) when it popped into three dimensions again.

An explosion sounded from behind Leon and he whipped around to see Hakim's gun smoking. Angry at himself for being distracted, Leon turned around back to the Heartless to keep going but was startled to see the Shadow dissipating, like a puff of black smoke.

His mouth twisting, Leon turned around again, looking for more Heartless. He wouldn't be robbed of destroying the next one.


Meanwhile, Yuffie was waking up. With a yawn, she stretched all the way pushing her arms and legs as far as they could go. She smiled - no nightmares - and opened her eyes to darkness. Confused for a second, Yuffie's smile turned to a frown until she remembered that there was no daytime here. Sighing, she sat up and strained her eyes to see around the room.

Aerith was still in bed, so Yuffie guessed it was still early. She pushed herself out of bed and went over to check the clock on the dresser. Six twenty-five. Aerith shouldn't be awake until seven at the earliest, which was irritating. Having to wait until the other girl got up to do anything! For about a minute, Yuffie stood there debating whether to wake the older girl up but decided against it. After all, she was pretty good at her letters now, she could just write a note saying where she was and then there wouldn't be a problem.

So Yuffie changed into exploring clothes as quietly as she could, and dug around until she found paper and pens left on the bedside table. She painstakingly etched the words.

'I am going to go xplore town. I will be very safe so you don't have to wory. I will be back soon. Yuffie'

Pleased with herself, Yuffie put the note on her bed where Aerith could see it easily and then left the room. Downstairs in the lobby, she got a few curious looks from the people standing around but she stared back at them until they looked away.

Where to begin... She'd been all around first district with Cid and then Aerith, so it wasn't appealing to go look around a place she already knew. From the severe lectures she'd gotten from everyone about the Heartless lurking there, she knew third district was a no-go. So that left second district. Yuffie's stomach fluttered in guilty excitement as she thought about going in. All that she knew about second was that sometimes Heartless came but enough people lived there that it wasn't that often.

So she sauntered out of the hotel and off to the door to second district, and figured that if she acted like nothing was out of the ordinary, the adults walking around would think so, too. This time, rather than meet the looks she got, Yuffie just ignored them. There were too many adults walking around, so it would slow her down to lock eyes with everyone.

She had a little trouble pulling the wooden door open, but she strained with all her might and slipped through the opening just barely wide enough for her. Then she got her first look. Her first thought was that it was gigantic enough to fit the bailey from Hollow Bastion like, five times and still squeeze her house in there. Humongous! Rather than the village-like first district, the second looked more like home... All stone buildings and they looked like the castle, too! A wave of nauseous homesickness come over her and Yuffie had to lean against the door until it passed.

Not experienced enough with memories to know how to push them away, she couldn't stop seeing images of her mother and father when they took her out to the market (all smiling and only telling jokes and stories about knights slaying dragons) and their servant's son Ryuta, her favourite almost brother ever, teaching her to catch bugs and finding the best hiding spots on the grounds of her house and how to make the best booby traps.

Well, she was wasting time. There weren't as many people around, so that meant she'd have a little more free rein. Taking advantage of her freedom, she just walked around, looking at the shops, the houses, the fountain and the giant cathedral over at the far side. The more she saw, the better she felt. It just felt so familiar! The worry of Heartless was pushed back as the people around her seemed to be going about normally, walking, talking, gathered around doors and doing business. Her smile grew wider.

What drew her was the cathedral. Easily the biggest building in sight, it seemed to have no end of pillars, nooks, designs and pictures all over it. Yuffie spent a lot of time tracing the lines and wishing she was taller so she could properly see the higher ones. Momentarily satisfied, she moved on to looking though the nooks, hoping for a hole just big enough for her and anything she might want to keep there. (Yuffie wasn't yet old enough to know the word 'hoarding' but she sure knew what it was in practice.)

She had worked her way down the right side of the cathedral down to where it met the stone wall fruitlessly. Miffed but not allowing herself to give up, she began to move on to the stone wall itself. Not really expecting anything but just enjoying the search, Yuffie felt her way down the wall.

Slowly, her hands stopped on a section of stone just above her head and she frowned. It wasn't the specific piece of wall, she didn't think, but she felt rather than heard buzzing all around her. Creeped out, Yuffie took her hands off the wall; the buzzing lessened but didn't stop. Shaking her head (and then her body) didn't get rid of it, so she looked around with a deep frown, looking for what was going on. The other people, increased in number as time went on, didn't seem to even notice she was there. Nothing else stirred.

Yuffie decided now was as good a time as any to go back to the hotel, as Aerith would probably be awake by now. Shooting an glare at the wall where she had stopped, she turned around and ran back to the first district. Stupid wall.

Perhaps if she'd been a bit more observant, she'd have noticed the nearby light stand was a little bit more green than the others or the yellow eyes that followed her from the alleyway not ten feet from the wall where she'd been.


Cid sat by himself in the hotel room, lights off. The lights had been off all day. And when he said all day, he meant from morning to the early evening it was now.

He'd gone out only once, downstairs to the lobby where he'd asked after something to drink. When the lady behind the desk shook her head, Cid resisted growling at her. "Cigarettes?"

Again, she shook her head, unperturbed by his bad temper. "Maybe you could try the shop down at the corner." She pointed in the direction of the door.

So he did. He wasn't sure where she had meant, but there was a small shop on the corner like she said. "Warner's." Well, hell if that explained anything. He walked in and once inside, still wasn't sure what this place was about. The shelves seemed to have random junk all over them, no rhyme or reason to the choice of items. Cleaning supplies on one shelf and small snacks on the next and then lamps and lightbulbs on the one after that. Downright silly is what it was.

Along the side was the shopkeeper behind a desk, reading a book.

"Got any cigarettes?" Cid asked, slapping his hands on the edge of the desk.

The man looked up, startled. "Uh, sorry?"

"Cigarettes, do you got 'em?" repeated Cid.

The shopkeeper looked at him, lingering a second more than Cid liked. "Yeah, I have some." He started to dig around in a niche Cid couldn't see from where he was standing. "That's thirty-five munny per pack." Coming up with a pack, he looked at Cid expectantly.

Then Cid had a minor crisis when he realized that he had no local currency. In his pockets he had some spare gil, so he took that out, hoping it would work.

The shopkeeper took a look at the coins in his hand and frowned. He seemed on the verge of outright refusing but he took another look at Cid and seemed to consider it again. "Don't think I've seen your face before," the man (Warner?) said carefully. "You one of the newcomers?"

"Yeah," said Cid. "News travels fast, eh?"

"You have no idea," said the shopkeeper. "What're these called?" He pointed at the coins.

"Gil," said Cid. "That's about forty."

The shopkeeper took the gil out of his hands, pushing it around a bit. "Looks like they've got some good metal in them." He pocketed them and handed over the pack. "I'll give you this for now but in the future, see if you can't get some munny. I can't be this generous all the time."

So Cid took the cigarettes with a nod and walked out, heading back to the hotel. Which is where he stayed for most of the day. He didn't know if he was allowed to smoke there but there wasn't a no-smoking sign anywhere; Cid wasn't sure it would have stopped him even if there was one.

His last pack having run out about a month ago, Cid enjoyed lighting up that first cigarette more than anyone would say was healthy. He sat there until that was done, savoring every drag. When he lit up the second, he put the pack away in his jacket pocket and started looking around his room. The only light was coming from under the doorway in the hall and the lamplight streaming in from the window. It was a pathetic little room on the most depressing world imaginable.

Cid blew out the smoke from a deeper than usual draw. All the worlds still untouched by Heartless and they had to land on the one that never had daylight. How did anyone survive here? Never mind where the food, water and houses came from - the lack of sunshine was a destroyer. In his early days of piloting, when he was still in the military, Cid had visited one of the bases on Hollow Bastion and had been invited to watch an interrogation of some prisoner captured from one of the neighboring provinces. Being stupid and ignorant as anything, he'd accepted.

What an idiot. Cid was past the point of being embarrassed, but damn did he wish he could go back and shake up his old self.

Until that point, they'd left the captured man relatively untouched. Before anything got started, Cid saw a sickly looking man chained to a wall. Thin, gaunt, pale. "Shit, what'd they do to him?" he'd muttered, lighting a cigarette he'd tucked behind his ear.

A nearby soldier guarding the room heard his comment. "Nothing," he'd said. "Just kept him down below. No sun down there. Skipped a few meals, though; he didn't want to eat." Cid glanced at the name tag sewn on the uniform: Kiefer. Why did he remember that? He couldn't even remember the kid's face.

He looked at the prisoner again. He'd only been down there for a few days? Why the hell did he look so terrible? Nothing had even happened but he was already beaten. Cid didn't know how he knew the man would talk, but he was right. The actual interrogation was one of the more terrible memories; ranked higher than the first time Shera had caught him drunk the first time since they'd slipped those rings on their fingers and below the image burned into his brain of her face being swallowed by darknesses with soulless yellow eyes.

The soldier in charge of interrogating had started off easy, just asking questions and roughing the man up. After about fifteen minutes of that, he seemed to become bored with that and started to get creati - Cid hastily focused on the dying embers on the end of his cigarette, trying to just imagine the tiny fire igniting all the chemicals he was breathing. No, fire was a bad one, don't go there. Shit. Quick, what had happened today?

Well, first, he was woken up at some uncivilized hour by Aerith shrieking her head off in the room next door. His first thought was the Heartless are here and they've finally come to finish us off but after a few adrenaline-filled seconds of feeling like a headless chicken, he realized Aerith wasn't yelling from fear but because she was angry. No, he amended, she's furious. The idea made him uneasy; she was the nice little porcelain doll made of sugar and spice. She wasn't supposed to melt.

He listened at the door long enough to learn Yuffie had done something ungodly stupid, case in point: sneaking off by herself in a city where Heartless were known to make a living. Well, 'living', bad word choice. Shaking his head (had he been like that once?), Cid lumbered back to bed and couldn't remember what happened next.

Something he'd always considered a blessing was that he was almost never able to recall his nightmares. He knew he had them. Every morning, he'd wake up with a taste of fear and bitterness, something trying to dig its way into his brain but always slipping away after a second. Maybe that's why the kids seemed to dealing better. At least they were facing whatever their worst memories were, while Cid took every opportunity to crawl into a hole and hide. Preferably with the help of whiskey.

Of course, the kids weren't exactly perfect, either. Better than ol' Saint Highwind, that went without saying, but sometimes Cid wished destiny or fate or whoever had their hand in this had let him come across kids who had their heads screwed on better.

Aerith was probably the best of them; could see where the line was, but didn't have a lot of patience for those like him whose vision had gotten a little blurrier with the years. (He was only twenty-seven, why did he feel fifty? It wasn't fair.) Like that morning. Yuffie sure had deserved a yelling at, but cripes, that girl had a set of lungs. Cid didn't exactly have room nor right to complain about reprimands, but couldn't she take her morality somewhere else? It was wasted on the dregs of humanity that existed in this fucking darkness.

And Yuffie? Nix that kid's survival instinct. Ixnay on the urvivalsay instinctway. Probably wouldn't recognize the danger in a chainsaw-waving maniac if one was standing right in front of her. He never really saw a problem before, but a seven-year-old going into town alone and unarmed? Really?

As for Leon... Well, Cid didn't even know where to start with that headcase. He wondered if there were any shrinks in this town. The fun wouldn't stop if they ever got their hands on his issues. Even if he was an idiot, Cid was also observant. Even when he'd been completely wasted, he could tell when Leon was about to lose it. The way a dog can tell that their master is about to freak and hit them. Cid felt sudden empathy for dogs; him and canines everywhere could tell who the time bombs were. Now if only they knew how to defuse them. Red wire or black wire? Which one?

He cut himself off in the middle of the mental image of a goggle-wearing dog hovering over Leon with wire cutters. When he started waxing this poetic, Cid knew it was time to get well and truly drunk. Well, he thought, round two with Traverse Town. He got off the bed, ground the remains of his second cigarette into the floor and opened the door. After all, wasn't it supposed to be a new world of possibilities out there? As if.


When Leon walked through the lobby doors, Aerith could have cried in relief. She ran over to him from where she'd been wearing a hole in the floor, too pleased to see him to take stock of how he looked. "Leon!"

He looked up from the floor at her call, his face a careful blank.

When she was close enough to speak to him privately and not tip off the few people in the lobby what was going on, she wasn't able to stop herself from babbling an explanation. "Leon, it's terrible, and I didn't know what to do, and I put Yuffie to bed already, I still can't believe she went out and Cid - "

Leon just held up a hand and it was effective as putting a hand over her mouth. "We'll talk in my room."

Aerith nodded quickly and they went up the stairs. Once they closed the door behind him, Leon turned to her and said with a clipped voice, "Start from the beginning."

Wringing her hands, she told the story. "I woke up this morning around seven and Yuffie was gone. At first, I checked your room but she wasn't there. Not with Cid, either. Then I found a note on her bed saying she'd gone out exploring." She checked Leon's face for a reaction, but nothing. "I didn't even know where to start looking. I must have gone everywhere in the district but even the people saying they vaguely remembered seeing a girl her age didn't know where she was. I was just about to find Chikere and ask for help when I caught Yuffie coming back in from the second district."

Now Leon's eyebrows raised slightly but he said nothing.

"I took her back here and asked her where she went. She spent at least an hour and a half in the second district, completely by herself. What if there was - " Aerith cut herself off before she lost control of her words again.

"Okay," said Leon. "Then what happened?"

Aerith stared at him. "What do you mean, then what happened? Isn't it a big enough deal what she did?"

Leon lifted a hand and pinched the bridge of his nose, almost exaggerated in the slowness of his movement. "Obviously you took care of that and she's in bed now. You mentioned Cid downstairs."

At the mention of his name, Aerith decided to bring up Yuffie later because something indefinable reared its head, something between rage and dread. "I'll just show you." She started heading towards Cid's room, through the hallway so as not to disturb Yuffie's sleep. She just checked once to make sure Leon was following outside of Cid's room and then opened the door.

The lights were still off, not that she had expected that to change since leaving Cid here. As soon as she swung the door inward, the stench of cigarette smoke and cheap beer met them immediately, forcing Aerith to choke down a gag. When she didn't hear anything behind her, she turned to look meaningfully at Leon who was standing motionless in the hallway. When they made eye contact, Leon stepped through the door with an air of aggravated stateliness, at which Aerith swallowed a heated assertion that this wasn't worth her time, either.

She went in and flicked on the light, closing the door behind her; Cid immediately cussed at the blinding effect of the light and flung a hand up over his eyes. "...on yer mother's black soul...!" Heart sinking, Aerith saw in Cid's loose grasp a bottle of whiskey she had missed in her evening scourge of the room, which was now more than half finished. The man was squeezing his eyes shut with tears on his cheeks as he railed furiously at them and sloshing alcohol wherever he waved the bottle while he threatened them with things like gouging out their eyes with their own thumbs.

"Cid!" She walked over and wrenched the bottle out of his hands. The man was almost heaving but she recoiled when she saw vomit on the foot of the bed, a congealed mess on the sheets, and she suddenly understood the rancid air she was breathing. She nearly looked back at Cid to see if she could see signs on him on being sick before she decided she didn't have the courage, not tonight. She ignored his slurring, growled threats - he'd never really stopped mumbling and swearing from when they'd come in - easily batting away his attempts to get the bottle back. She marched out of his arm's reach and when the man glared at her through narrowed eyes, she merely met his eyes without responding. She battled the angry tears that flooded her eyes at the sight of Cid slumped on the bed, mostly successful.

After a minute of Leon standing there silently, Aerith tried to keep her patience. "Well?" she asked, forcing herself to ignore Cid's noise-making in the background.

"What do you want me to do?" asked Leon, icy. "It's a bit late now."

Aerith drew in breath, aware it sounded like a hiss. "Then you could at least tell me you'll deal with it tomorrow instead of just standing there!"

She couldn't believe how fast Leon whipped away from her. Offended and about to tell him so, her words caught when instead of leaving, he brusquely shoved Cid under the covers, removed a pack half full of cigarettes from somewhere and came back. "Let's go to my room."

That smarted. She was supposed to be the caregiver - the responsible and tactful one. With even more sourness curdling in her gut, she followed him to the privacy of his room. Once there, Leon began to get ready for bed. Lionheart went beside the bed, the jacket went over the back of the chair, and his boots went beside the door. Then they finally faced each other.

After a moment of uncomfortable silence, Leon gestured with a hand. "What do you want?" The snap in his voice made his impatience obvious.

Peeved at the rudeness of his query, Aerith exhaled roughly and shrugged. "Leon, I just - I can't do this by myself. I want you to do something about what Yuffie and Cid did."

"What do you want me to do?" He was quiet, almost inaudible. Despite that, he never broke eye contact with Aerith, which irritated her for a reason she herself couldn't fathom.

"I want you to make a decision!" she snapped. "If you think it's pointless to do something tonight, then at least say that! If you think I did something wrong, say that! But say something!"

"What if I don't think anything?" His voice even colder, Aerith could tell when Leon was mentally retreating. Well, not if she had a say.

"Then we're screwed," she said, as blunt as she knew how to be and hoping that would enough to get a rise out of him. Anything was better than him closing off from the world. "I can barely handle Yuffie as it is and I can't do anything about Cid at all." Taken by sudden passion, her voice raised and she stepped closer to him. "I need you to step in and help for once, damn it, Leon! You're leaving me alone out here!"

By his steadily darkening face, Aerith knew she had stopped the retreat. Anger was better than apathy. "You've been forcing me to handle everything that's wrong with us because you just haven't been here!" She realized she was breathing hard and in that instant, that she knew that now she had started, she couldn't stop herself. "I've been shouldering Yuffie's tantrums, her acting out, completely raising her by myself and I haven't even gotten to Cid getting plastered every time we're within a mile of alcohol! Whereas you just go somewhere else so you don't have to deal with the fact we're all you have left!"

Her hands were trembling out of control. Why were they shaking so hard? She clasped them together to still them and it worked, marginally. She lowered her voice, aware of how loud she had been getting. "You're supposed to be the one leading us but so far you've done an excellent job of abandoning responsibilities." She forced her yell to be quieter, and it came through gritted teeth.

"What was that?" Leon spoke as if dreaming, distant and cold; he'd seemed to reach the end of his anger. But rather than openly showing it, he'd gone very still.

"I have to pick up the things you just drop," said Aerith, "and it's more than I can do by myself. I need you to do your job."

Leon seemed to be hard of hearing, leaning in as if he was having trouble making out the words. Aerith knew that was nonsense, as she could tell she was speaking very clearly.

"What if I don't want to be the leader?"

Aerith glowered and made eye contact, furious he was saying this now of all times when they should be beginning anew and not getting worse. "Then maybe I should have grabbed someone else on Hollow Bastion, they wouldn't be as much of a waste of - "

She heard a loud crack split the air and Aerith felt knives plunge into her face. Gasping to breathe but somehow unable to exhale, she started heaving airless sobs uncontrollably from the panic and the stabbing pain. Need to calm down. Need to calm down. But I can't breathe! If you want to breathe, calm down. Over the next excruciating moments, Aerith forced herself to breathe out and shuddered gasps until she was sure she wasn't going to suffocate herself.

Reaching up, she felt her face and found it damp with tears - that's why she could hardly see - but no wounds. With a jolt, she realized she was on the ground and hadn't just imagined it... She forced herself to look up and saw Leon with his hand still outstretched. What was that look on his face...?

"...Aerith..."

Did she imagine that?

"Get out," she rasped, hardly able to speak. It felt like only a second and she was alone. She put her head back down on the floor, just trying to regain enough strength to get up. After a few minutes, she decided she had gathered enough grit to walk unsteadily to the wall, switch the light off and crawl into the bed. She buried her head in her arms and cried herself to sleep.