9. Frantic Fear

Tifa rapidly paced around the small, crowded lounge. Although she hardly knew Sephiroth, and found Leon aloof and unapproachable most of the time, she felt a connection with the two men that went beyond personal feelings.

Her sense of people was usually accurate and she felt deep inside that Leon and Sephiroth were important to their attempts to escape the Assassin and to thwart some ultimate faceless power that she could not identify.

Suddenly she spun around and stared at Cloud. 'Something's wrong!' she whispered. 'Leon, oh Leon, we have to help them. We have to get to Leon's place!'

Tifa twisted around and ran to the door followed by Aeris and Cloud. Jumping off the deck she raced as fast as she could toward Leon's quietly menacing house. Something was happening inside the house, something was enormously wrong. Fear lent her wings and she quickly outdistanced the other two. 'Hurry!' she urged the others. 'Please hurry!'

They flat out ran through the open front door and hurried up the stairs. Crashing down the hall, they stopped just outside of Leon's bedroom. Still ahead of the other two, Tifa ran frantically into the bedroom.

The first thing that stuck Tifa was the aura of sheer desolation that pervaded the modest room. She found that she was looking down on Sephiroth's bowed head as he tenderly rocked Leon's still body in his arms. He was covered in the blood of the still fighter.

Her scream shattered the deceptively calm atmosphere, bringing Cloud and Aeris through the door into the horrific scene. The full implications of what she had seen abruptly struck home to Tifa and she fell, in a faint, to the floor.

Cloud was immediately at her side and he held her close, eyes filled with helpless tears. Dimly he registered that Aeris had run from the house, screaming for a healer.

x x x

Aeris had taken in the scene at a glance, and while the others reacted in their own ways, she immediately recognized the urgent need for a healer. Her mind threw up a memory and she started running swiftly towards the edge of the forest, towards perhaps the only person who could help them, Eldai, the Diardhirrim priest and disciple of Starmarda.

Gasping for breath Aeris raced through the woods. Leon was depending on her and she knew that if the Diardhirrim did not arrive in time, the man that she felt so strongly for would be dead.

Dead. She could not comprehend it. That Leon, so full of life and youth not long ago, was now lying in limbo between life and death. Aeris now knew that she would never be with Leon but she also knew that she could not let him die. She still loved him dearly, and her heart ached for him.

Her lungs were bursting by the time she reached the forest's opposite edge but she forced herself to keep going. It was not far now to the old man's hut. Suddenly she pulled up short. There in front of her, sitting on a rock, was Eldai. Looking straight into her eyes he said, 'The one who is loved is dying. I have been waiting for you. We must go at once if I am to be of any aid.'

With an expression of wonder on her face, Aeris made as if to start off again down the path but the old man reached out a withered arm to stop her.

'We have no time to waste child.' He said. 'Take hold of my arm and do not let go for any reason. No matter what you see.'

Trembling a little, Aeris did as she was bid and everything went black. The forest did not fade around her; it went straight from being there, to being nothing. The black permeated her entire existence yet with her last, sorely tried, threads of sanity, she clung to the man as if to life itself. She felt a sensation of impossibly fast motion and colors exploded behind her eyes, wheeling and swirling disconcertingly.

After an indeterminate period of time Aeris felt her feet touch solid ground. It was only then that she realized that she had her eyes squeezed tightly shut. Opening them, she blinked in the sunlight and sucked in her breath with a gasp. They were now outside Leon's house, on the other side of the woods from Eldai's dwelling.

Shoving her astonishment and trepidation aside, Aeris followed the old man as he moved swiftly up the stairs and walked directly to Leon's bedroom. Seeing Sephiroth clutching Leon, Eldai coughed discreetly to announce his presence. This gained no response from the devastated mage, so Eldai stepped into the room of blood.