Yay for the next chapter! Again a scene in this chapter was supposed to be in the previous one but I left it out because if I'd put it in, it would have been a bit rushed. This is another long chapter! Also the end is quite confusing (As my lovely friend said when she proof read it) So don't be afraid to ask if you're confused!
It had been three days since they had arrived at 7th Heaven...and nothing had really changed. If anything Tidus was feeling even worse than he had been.
Rikku and he had perused the town, well, most of it, searching for Yuna. Unfortunately they hadn't found anything. No sign, no trace.
It was 3 days since Tidus had told Rikku of his theory about the different worlds. She had reacted with fear and disbelief. Originally she hadn't believed him. She had thought he was joking, Tidus kind of wished that was the case.
After Yuffie had come back in though, Rikku had bombarded her with questions about this world, Gaia, and she had finally come to believe him.
Tidus sighed, still feeling melancholic, as he walked back into the main bar, still drying the glass in his hand.
The next second there was a loud smash and he felt cold pain in his leg. the bar went quiet with the sound of the smash.
He looked down to see the glass that had been firmly in his hand on the floor, sparkling in the artificial light, still wet with washing up water. A dull throbbing in his leg alerted him to the fact that when the glass smashed some shards had dug their way into his lower leg, unprotected by trousers. Curse fashion.
Tifa ran down the stairs as she noticed the sudden silence. As she rounded the corner at the end of the stairs she noticed Tidus standing stock still, hands in front of him, a dish cloth hung over one arm.
Tidus had heard her coming down the stairs, but he was still in shock, there was no way that cup could have fallen from his grip. One hand had been beneath it and the other had been wrapped round it, as he had been drying up from the previous days' business.
He was shaken out of his slight stupor by Tifa's hand on his arm.
"Tidus! What happened?"
"I...I'm not sure...the glass just...fell..."
"Oh, you got cut? I'll go get the disinfectant."
Tidus nodded slowly.
Just then Rikku tumbled down the stairs,
"Hey Tidus- oh woah is that blood!"
"Dropped...broke a glass." He frowned, dropped was definitely NOT the right word.
"Oh wow. I thought it got quiet down here." The noise levels had risen again though. "Where's Tifa?" She asked, non-plussed about the rivulets of blood running down Tidus' leg, staining his yellow socks red.
"She's out the back getting uh...disinfectant."
"Ah. K... Well, Yuffie's offered me a tour of this city, gotta get to know the place before we go searching for Yunie again right?"
"Yeah...good idea..."
"Ok, well, seeya later, if you haven't been killed by the ferocious glass that is!" She winked, smiled cheekily and hopped, skipped and jumped out of the bar.
"Oh, was that Rikku?" Tifa's voice came from behind him.
"Uh...Yeah." Tidus blinked
"Where was she going?"
"Oh, Yuffie offered to take her on a tour."
"Ah that's good, now, could you pull these pieces of glass out?"
Shaking himself, it was just a glass after all, Tidus limped a couple of paces to the nearest bar stool and sat down on it, raising his leg onto his lap.
He gritted his teeth and pulled out the shards watching pathetic spurts of blood follow.
Tidus looked up for a second and felt a stinging pain in his cuts.
"Owww, what was that?"
"Disinfectant." Tifa said calmly, a small smile on her face as she took in his indignant expression,
"Uh huh."
"You better keep the weight off of that leg for a while, just let them heal on their own."
"Ok sure." He nodded. He felt like a little kid all over again.
Tidus sat on the bar stool and observed his surroundings, it was just the same as the previous couple of days, the bar was loud and everyone sounded cheerful.
Usually in a place that was so happy, one would become happy...but...
He still hadn't figured out why he felt like this, or why him dropping a glass had been so important, like something kept floating just out of reach.
"I could really do with a game of Blitzball right now..." he sighed.
XXX000XXX
Cloud was sat on a large boulder out in the wastes, right on the cliff that bore Zack's memorial. It was the same boulder he had hidden behind while Zack became a hero.
Cloud shook his head and addressed the Buster Sword, standing silent on the hill.
"I don't know...what should I do?" He buried his head in his hands. "Zack..."
A sharp pain shot through him, like ripples originating from his despair as memories surged before his eyes. Torture that came in several kinds rushed across him. His arm was throbbing, almost pulsating with an aching, shooting pain, his head hurting with unbidden, unwelcome memories of the man that had done so much for him, without getting anything in return.
After a couple of minutes the offending limb stopped hurting, although a thin streak of black ooze had made its way down and was dripping off of his exposed fingers.
Just one more reminder of his uselessness .
He still didn't know what to do about the girl...his mind swirled back to 3 days previous.
~~~000
Reno's Nightstick was brushing side by side with First Tsurugi; the owners' faces polar opposites. Cloud pulled back slightly as Reno swung, missed and catapulted outside, managing to shut the door as he went.
As the door started to open again Cloud locked it.
In that time Rude had come into the room but he showed no sign of wanting to fight.
"...You called?"
"Yes..." A new spoke from the other room.
"Is that..." Cloud's voice trailed off as a wheelchair came through the door, the man in it was mostly covered by a white sheet, but the smirk on his face was unmistakable.
"Rufus Shinra huh? So you survived."
"Yes. Now I'm here to give you an offer."
"What would that be?" Cloud was shrewd he still didn't trust Shinra.
"There have been some very unusual...occurrences recently, wouldn't you agree...Cloud?"
Cloud merely nodded slightly.
"I want to hire you...to help me find out about this, as the muscle."
"Not interested, I'm a delivery boy, not a mercenary." The 'anymore' part went unspoken, but not unacknowledged.
"That's too bad...I was hoping we could...share some knowledge."
"Come on boss, you know what this idiot is like!" Reno's muffled voice came from outside.
Cloud thumped the door.
"Ignore him." Rufus Shinra said dismissively. "Now, I have something to show you." He made a small motion at Rude who opened the other door again.
Cloud cautiously followed them through. What he saw made him stop and stare in shock.
A girl lay asleep on the sofa. It was the same girl that Cloud had seen the other night!
"Ohh...?" Rufus looked interested at his reaction. "Do you...know this girl?"
"She's... what I came to ask about..." Cloud chose his words carefully.
Rufus was silent.
"I saw her running into a building after an attack from Shadow Creepers. The next day I went looking for her, all I found was a broken building and helicopter tracks." Cloud did not mention Tidus. However much he was suspicious of him he didn't want to mix him up with ShinRa. However Shinra seemed to pick up on the fact that he was concealing something.
"Why didn't you investigate straight away?"
Cloud gritted his teeth.
"There was a boy there as well...he...he was badly injured so I took care of him first."
"And where is he now...?" Rufus's voice was shrewd. Almost calculating.
"I'm not sure." Cloud said, not entirely truthfully, but not necessarily lying. He didn't know exactly where Tidus would be right now, he could have already left 7th Heaven. He then gestured to the girl.
"Why are you keeping her here?"
"She portrayed an unusual ability...we want to keep an eye on her."
Cloud stepped back slightly and narrowed his eyes.
"Oh, don't worry, no harm will befall her." He made another hand gesture and Rude ushered Cloud out of the room, just in time to see Reno climbing in through the window. He brushed himself off and looked up, winking.
"Reno, stop messing around." Rufus snapped.
"Sir!" Reno's goofy grin was replaced by a mock seriousness.
"Now...other matters..." Rufus went on to explain about Kadaj, strengthening Cloud's worry.
"Will you help us?" Rufus slowly extended a hand.
"Yeah! We could rebuild ShinRa!" Reno's input snapped Cloud back to reality.
"Not interested." He turned and unlocked the door.
"The offer is always open!" These words followed Cloud out of the door, and, as it shut he heard two voices saying,
"Reno, you IDIOT!"
~~~000
What Rufus said still troubled him. First there was Geostigma, coupled with Kadaj. Then there were the strange new comers, at least three of them now...Which reminded him, Yuffie had never gotten back to him.
He was really the last person to chase anyone up...but after what Rufus had said...her information was increasingly important.
Just what did they all want!
XXX000XXX
Zack lay, as he always did on an ethereal space on an ethereal plane.
Being dead really was very boring.
The Lifestream was actually quite beautiful. It wasn't some kind of floaty, fluffy place like many people thought, it was...mysterious. There was no real way to describe it.
Simply put, it was a place of memories, swirling green lights and a white fog. Well, not exactly a fog, more like...everything was being drawn on a piece of white paper and the people and lights were the only things being coloured in.
Some areas of the 'paper' had 'holes' in that allowed you to see through into the real world. Areas that allowed you to 'spy' on the living as Aerith put it. There was such an area right here, where Zack resided.
This little section 'belonged' to Zack and Aerith, Aerith, being a Cetra had somehow persuaded the planet into giving her a flowerbed. Ironic huh?
Today Zack had tuned into Cloud. Although the guy never said much about what he was thinking, it was usually written on his face. He was currently brooding about the guys from Spira.
"Poor guy, he's so paranoid."
"Spying on him again?" A gentle voice came from behind Zack. "It must be love." Aerith giggled.
"You know I only have eyes for you." Zack winked and shot her a cheesy grin as he turned round. "Find out anything new?"
Aerith shook her head as she sat down. On what, Zack...still wasn't sure.
"Just what the planet's already told me. Two years ago it appears that there was a connection made between the Farplane and the Lifestream. This happened after the Farplane received a huge rush of souls, it couldn't cope with them all so it opened up a link to the nearest Spiritual plane, the Lifestream. Coincidentally at that point the Lifestream had just rushed to destroy Meteor. Unfortunately the Lifestream was also absorbing Sephiroth's soul at the time.
The Farplane managed to use some of the Lifestream's Spiritual energy to stabilise itself, although in return the Lifestream borrowed some of the Farplane's unique energy to stop Meteor. Unfortunately at that point several of the artificial souls going to the Farplane were absorbed into the Lifestream."
"Surely that's not a bad thing? Just souls in a different 'heaven' to normal." Zack shrugged.
"You'd think." Aerith nodded. "However, as these souls were very special, having come from another world the possessed a very potent Spiritual energy. As such they were transformed into fuel for a twisted soul that was bordering between life and death at that moment."
"Sephiroth..." Zack breathed.
"Yes. Sephiroth." Aerith shuddered slightly.
"But...wait. What about Tidus? He's still around!" This was all too much for Zack.
"Well. The Souls that Sephiroth stole were all relatively weak. They came from a Dream world and as such they didn't hold much substance. Their bodies were purely Spiritual, made entirely of Pyreflies."
"What?" Zack asked stupidly.
"Ok. In any of the three worlds of this universe this applies, but for the purpose of this explanation I will use Spira as the example."
"You know, the planet knows a lot about the other worlds."
"Well, of course, they all originated from a similar space after all." Zack gaped at her. "Do you want to hear this explanation or not?" Aerith smiled slightly.
"Yeah...sure...go ahead..." Zack said weakly.
"In Spira a person's body and soul will contain a certain amount of Pyreflies. However they will also have a physical form and partial spirit that exists separately from the Pyreflies. This would allow them to exist in an area that the Pyreflies do not go. A Dream from that world is simply made from Pyreflies, Spiritual energy if you will. This means they have no physical form to rely on."
"I think I understand." Think being the operative word here...
"Good to know you're not entirely stupid." Aerith grinned cheekily and Zack huffed. "Anyways. According to the planet Tidus passed through a physical plane and strengthened his soul. Not so much that when the Fayth stopped Dreaming he was still there...but enough so that he wasn't lost in the rush."
"Ok...I'm following. So does this mean Sephiroth...?"
"Yes. He can come back. Using the stolen energy he may be able to recreate his physical form. Although..." She took a deep breath. "Although I do not know...how long it would take..."
"Then..." Zack gestured madly, trying to convey what he meant.
"Yes. We may be too late."
A/N
Ok! Finally done. I started Zack and Aerith's bit at 11:20 at night and wrote this A/N at 12:02 AM. –dead-
I did tons of research for this part, sorry if it's confusing! Hopefully everything will start linking together!
Ok, so yeah in the Cloud and Shinra scene I changed stuff, cos its not only boring for you to read the movie but its boring for me to write it D:
And I think I made Cloud too chatty in this chapter...well, I did write Cloud's section at 11 at night ;D
And there is a very good reason for Tidus still being emo! . I don't like him like that, but he's staying that way for a while =P
