Cloud's Reminiscence
Tifa's father died five years ago. His body was crookedly heaped on the catwalk of the mako reactor. The long daikatana blade—Masamune—had skewered him to the floor. It stuck out of his back like a flagpole.
I remember the blood. It wasn't coming from the wound – the sword cut too neatly for that. It dribbled out of his mouth, off the catwalk he lay on, down into the blinding pool of mako waste.
I arrived in the reactor core just after Tifa, but she took no notice of me. She knelt down, trembling.
"Papa?" she asked the corpse.
I couldn't do anything but watch from the shadows.
"Papa…" she realized. "No."
Tifa leaned in, pressing her face against the body. Listening.
I could hear my breathing over the hiss of the reactor.
She reached out and touched the long handle of the sword. "Sephiroth," she recognized it. "Sephiroth did this to you, didn't he?" She looked ahead, at the doorway to the next chamber. Noise came from within. He was in there. "Sephiroth… Shinra… SOLDIER… I hate them all… I hate them all…"
She used the handle of the Masamune to hoist herself up. She wasn't trembling anymore.
Using all of her might, she pulled the blade out of her dad's spine.
When the blade wrenched through the body, the nerves twitched and the corpse convulsed. She didn't scream. She didn't even flinch.
"I hate them all," I heard her say.
The Masamune was too long and heavy for her to wield. She dragged it behind her.
She stalked into the chamber ahead, as if in a trance.
I tried to follow. I tried.
I couldn't move.
I couldn't move.