Cloud drove around in front of us and opened the sides of Fenrir. He pulled out a blade as he said, "Marlene will be safe, I took her home."
I caught myself staring at him. Never since I met him did he seem so attractive. Valiant – that's the word I would use. 'What are you thinking?' I screamed at myself in my head.
"I know what you're thinking" a voice spoke behind me. I turned around and looked at the man behind me.
"Zack" I said.
"C'mon, admit it! You like Cloud! You might even love him, am I right?" he teased.
"Do I?" I asked.
"Wow, I really do know you better than you know yourself" he laughed.
"You never did before you could get in my head" I growled.
"True" he said. "I know that you still blame yourself. I want you to stop. You have to move on."
"But…"
"No, I'm not going to forgive you for something I never blamed you for" he said. "Forgive yourself and move on!"
How could I move on? I loved Zack and I left before I could tell him. But… did I love Cloud, too? Zack really did know me better than I knew myself lately. Tifa saw it, too. Maybe I was so lost in my need for closure and forgiveness that I had lost myself.
The light around me began to fade. "No, wait!" I yelled. "Zack, I need to tell you…"
"I feel lighter" said Cloud as he stared out at the monster, the wind ruffling his hair. When had I come back to reality? "Maybe I lost some weight" he cast us a sideways glance as he pulled out another blade. "All that dilly dallying."
I saw Tifa smile. "I'm going to go back and see Marlene. Okay, Cloud. We'll wait for you" said Denzel before running off. He suddenly stopped and turned around. "We'll see you there, won't we Cloud?"
Cloud nodded; Denzel smiled and kept running. "What about you?" he asked.
"What about me?" I asked him, shifting uncomfortably under his stare. Looking at him now, it had suddenly all hit me. I was embarrassed, trying not to blush while holding his gaze. It had been so long since a man made me feel this way.
"Will you be okay?" he asked.
"I still have unfinished business" I said. I called Atlatl telepathically and she was by my side in an instant. As I leapt on her back I said, "It wasn't my fault, but now there are two things I'll never forgive myself for not doing. Right now, I'm okay physically, but I don't want to die before I've done those two things."
He nodded to me with a smile that nearly made me melt. Well, it wasn't much of a smile really, but still it was more than he'd shown before.
I reached into a secret compartment in my gear and pulled out a small glowing orb. "I hoped I'd never have to use this" I said, "But when people can get hurt, I have no choice."
"It's material" said Tifa. "But what kind? I've never seen any so dark."
I looked down at the deep purple glowing ball. "Of course you've never seen it before" I said. "Because I owned the only two that ever were forged. Negative material. It undoes summons and attacks by summons and other material related attacks. I used the first against Sephiroth many years ago. I've been holding onto this one for a while. I guess it's just time." I pressed the ball into my arm. A slightly purple aura seemed to surround my body. "Atlatl and I will stay on the ground. We can stop the destruction down here."
Cloud nodded and Tifa climbed onto the motorcycle behind him. I felt a pang of jealousy at her touching him. 'Great, more distractions' I thought as they drove off. "Let's go!" I said to Atlatl, nudging her side with my heel. I had a feeling that the real battle hadn't even started yet. 'One thing at a time' I told myself as Atlatl and I raced toward the giant creature.
As we got closer, I could see that the group was already fighting Sin. They seemed to work so well as a group, I didn't know how I would fit in. I did know one thing. They would need me off of the ground. "Sorry old friend, I'll have to leave you" I said to Atlatl.
"I'll be close by" she assured me as she stopped and flipped, launching me into the fray. I sped past the man called Barret as he was shooting at the creature. As it turned to attack him, it fired a blue ball of energy. I held out my arm and shot straight through it, latching onto the monster's tail as it pulled up. My goal was unclear, even to myself, but I had to jump off as it tried to smash me into a support beam. As I landed, Vincent came out of the flames of the blast and Cid leapt onto the creature's back.
Sin flew up and went to smash Cid into a support beam but the dog and cat team grabbed him and yanked him off of its back. They landed safely and Sin stopped and latched onto the side of a building. It screamed before flying back off and diving under a support beam past Vincent, who began shooting again. Sin turned around to charge him and he was soon flipping around its head and shooting again. Yuffie joined him as well. She ran up one of the beams and leapt off of it, throwing her shiruken.
The dog had latched itself onto the face of the monster as it turned to face Yuffie. It charged up another energy blast and began to fire. Cid jumped down and stabbed it with his spear in the head, redirecting the blast. I jumped at the creature again, trying to get between the blast and the beam it was headed to but I was too slow. It hit the beam and exploded. Barret was under the falling debris but before it could fall on him, someone came and grabbed him. They both landed safely and I pushed off a wall. I landed next to Cloud, who had been the one to grab Barret.
"Hey, how have you been?" yelled Barret.
Cloud looked at the creature and then to me and nodded. I gave him a quick nod back and charged my material. Cloud and I both launched ourselves at the same time. While Cloud struck at the creature's head, I flew past him and landed on it, running down its back and attempting to blast a wing off with my material. Cloud was forced away from Sin and I leapt off the tail. I leapt back onto the monster and ran up towards the head as it attacked Cloud again. He assembled his buster sword and I grabbed mine. We both attacked the head this time.
"Get off!" Cloud told me and I complied, leaping to the nearest beam. Cloud jumped high over the monster's head and began to glow light blue. He came back down and slammed his blade into Sin's head and caused it to plummet towards the ground. Cloud landed next to me and Sin writhed on the ground, way more pissed than before. Blue came from its mouth as it began to charge another blast. It began to ascend again and Cloud leapt up after it. I was going to follow but something else caught my attention.
I looked up at the building I knew my father was in. A white cloth fluttered down from the building. My father was standing and not under the blanket anymore. He was holding up a black box and a sensation I hadn't felt since I ran away filled me. I knew in an instant that it was Jenova.
A scream from Sin called me back to the fight at hand. Cloud was climbing higher and higher, each of his friends giving him a boost upwards as he got higher and higher. He began to glow blue, like a comet but during the day. Sin released his blue fireball at the ground, and Cloud as he advanced.
When Cloud hit the ball of blue energy, a small shock wave came from it. I watched, slightly in awe as he punctured right through and traveled upward through the inside. Each of his friends had landed safely near me. I looked around me and then back up to the ball, which I realized would destroy everything if it hit the ground.
"What are you doing!" I heard Tifa yell as I leapt off of the beam we were on. I mustered all the energy I had left in my materia and a quarter of the way up to the beast, I released it in a concentrated, dark purple ball that sped at the blue energy, hit the bottom with a metallic blast and a bright, still small, shockwave and caused it to instantly disperse as Cloud left the other side.
My momentum ceased to carry me upward and my energy was spent. I relaxed and allowed myself to freefall.
"Fayte!" I heard Tifa yell. I ignored her and watched silently as Cloud used his buster sword to slice open Sin's back as he ran up it. He left a trail of what seemed like blue fire in his wake and then leapt off of it when he reached its end.
I heard Sin let out a scream. It suddenly went up it what looked to be blue fire again and fell towards me. I knew that between hitting the ground and Sin hitting me, I would surely die. That thought in mind, I closed my eyes, hoping to black out before it happened.
"Fayte!" I heard Tifa scream again.
A soft smile graced my face. 'What a painless way to die' I thought. It would be much less painful than allowing the geostigma to kill me. Everything seemed to move in slow motion. Would I suddenly see my life flash before my eyes? What would it be like to die? So many questions plagued me. A small voice in the back of my head screamed. I needed to be alive to do at least one of the things I still needed to do, but I was going to die now. What could I do but accept that and be at peace with my death. What did it really matter if I told him the truth? Cloud probably only saw me as a friend anyway.
A sudden jerk sideways brought me out of my thoughts. I was still in the air, what was going on? My eyes snapped open and I looked to see that Atlatl had leapt across the void and had my clothing in her teeth, pulling me through the air to safety.
We landed on a beam not far under the others. I hadn't fallen nearly as far as I thought I had. My senses returned to me as Sin crashed down through the beams not far from us. I then realized that I was still dangling in Atlatl's mouth. My mouth opened to tell her to put me down, but before I could say anything, she threw me. A pained yelp left me as I smacked into a vertical beam attached to the one we were on and then I fell in a heap on the one we were on.
I pushed myself up and moved to sit against the beam. She growled and bared her teeth at me as she approached me. I squeaked with fear, suddenly feeling cornered. I had never been so scared of her before, in fact, she had never been like this before. She'd never given me a reason to be scared.
"You cold, selfish, heartless, bitch!" she snarled at me. "Did you think you could just die and it would all go away? Look at the people up there, look at Cloud, or your father! They all consider you to be a friend and they care! What about me?"
I blinked, wide eyed. What could I say?
"Nothing" she growled. "Don't say anything. There's nothing you can say. just get up and get moving. It's not over."
A bright light suddenly came from the building my father was in. There was a blast and then I saw someone fall before an explosion claimed the floor they were on. "Father!" I screamed when I realized it was him falling, followed by Kadaj. Cloud suddenly landed next to me.
"Come on!" he said. I hopped on Atlatl who stumbled. The action made me look down to see a gash in her leg.
"Oh, no" I gasped.
"I'll be fine" she insisted. I shook my head and leaned down, planting a kiss on her head. My leg suddenly felt as if it was on fire. Cloud was already on his way so I urged her forward. Without pain, she took off as fast as she could and quickly caught up to him.
We ran beside Cloud and soon heard shots. Kadaj was close to catching it when my father shot the black box. Something green leaked out of it and then Kadaj grabbed it. Two more Turks who I recognized as Tseng and Elena shot out a net to catch my father as Kadaj landed on the ground.
Reno knocked Rude down as Kadaj looked at what he had in his hands. When Kadaj saw us coming, he jumped on his motorcycle and took off in the opposite direction followed by Yazoo and Loz. Cloud and I sped up right on their tails. I looked down at Atlatl. It had been so long since we had a good chase.
"Keep on Kadaj" I told her. She nodded and picked it up. We weren't going to let them get away.
