A/n: Please listen to 'Pieces' by Red while reading this chapter to get the full dramatic effect. PLEASE READ AND REVIEW!
Chapter 12- The Promised Land
Tifa grunted as she pushed the fallen ruble off her body. It felt like ever part of her ached. She was battered and bruised but she had finally destroyed Sephiroth. Searching around, she found no evidence that he was still amongst the living. Her heart filled with hatred. Hatred for everything and everyone who had used her. The one she respected most, the one she had given her heart to, the one that had brought her out of the darkness, was dead. Not only that, but his death had been by her hand. She screamed out in anger and frustration. Her emotions swarming her brain, all she could think about was him being dead and how it was Genesis' fault. She listened for voices and heard a few from some where within the building. Her heart beat faster every step she took closer to the location of her captors. Sure enough she found Hollander, Zack, Genesis, Angeal and many other SOLDIERs personal.
They hadn't noticed Tifa enter yet. She walked swiftly forward. Zack's mouth gaped open when he finally noticed the extra body in the room.
"...huh?" Zack stared at the girl in amazement.
"Not possible..." Hollander muttered eyes wide. "You truly are uncontrollable and invincible."
Her eyes fixed on Genesis. Tifa balled her fists by her sides, if looks could kill, Genesis would've been completely obliterated by now. She trudged up to him and with one swift movement she punched him in the face. Genesis cried out in surprise as he brought his hand to his nose to examine the warm red liquid oozing out of it.
"Tifa it wasn't supposed to happen like this," He waved his hand in the air, trying to calm her down.
"Shut the fuck up! I'm tired of your talking. I save your life and you betray me by putting me under control again. Not to mention the fact that you attempted to remove my memories. You sick bastard!" She began beating on him with all her fury.
"Tifa!" Angeal ran up and grabbed her from behind, holding her in a headlock.
Tifa grabbed Angeal by the arm and flipped him over onto his back. She eyed up Genesis again much like a lion before it attacks and devours a baby gazelle. Suddenly, wicked blue flames erupted all over her body. Her eyes intensified their shade of vermillion. She shot fire towards Genesis who deflected it with his sword. A low growl ripped out of her chest and she ran towards Genesis. He swung his sword at her, purposely missing. Tifa ducked under it slightly and was close enough now to grab him by the face. Genesis grimaced in pain as the flames licked his face angrily.
"That's enough!" Angeal jumped in between the two of them.
"Don't defend him!" Tifa hissed into his face.
"Listen to what I have to say!" Genesis fired back at her.
"Why should I?! You're the reason I lost what little I had left!"
"Tifa… I'm sorry. I never meant for it all to happen like this." Genesis looked down at his feet.
"Like hell you didn't! You brought me to believe I could trust while you were pulling the strings all along!" She spat in his face.
"I won't ask you to forgive me…" He wiped her spit off his face.
"I hope you know that my cells are a mixture of Chaos' and Jenova's. So far, no other person has been able to sustain the war between the two different cell types. Surely Hollander told you that." Tifa looked around angrily for that chubby man.
"Wait… he's gone and so is the helicopter!" Zack looked around franticly.
"Go find him Zack!" Angeal ordered.
"You'd better hope I don't get to him first," Tifa pushed Angeal out of the way and made a run for the window.
Tifa remained in hiding for days, left alone to her maddening thoughts. She'd have her revenge eventually; it was all a matter of when and where. She lay up against a large tree in the deepest part of the forest. Her tears had long since run out and she sat in quiet contemplation. It was quite cold, but she felt nothing, only the bitter thoughts that Sephiroth was gone. He wasn't coming back.
"You lied to me… You said you weren't going to leave me alone any more," Tifa said quietly.
"I can't take back what's been done. It's up to you to continue living for the both of us." Sephiroth sat down next to her, his long strands of hair gently wafting in the breeze.
"I can't even reach you. You've become part of the Life Stream, some place I am not allowed to go."
"I'm still with you Tifa, in spirit at least. Do not forget that"
"It's my fault you're dead," Tifa lowered her head into her knees, hiding her face.
"No it's not and I will never blame you for it."
"I don't deserve your compassion."
"I forgive you, but the hardest part is forgiving yourself." Sephiroth stood up. He walked away to leave Tifa to herself. She shivered and hugged herself tighter.
"Hey! You there! You alright?" A voice called out towards her. Tifa looked up to see a large dark skinned man walking in her direction. His hair was braided tightly to his head and his face looked rough. She had to do a double take to make she wasn't just imagining things. The man had a mechanical arm and he was holding the hand of a girl that looked about 6 or 7. The little girl had large amber eyes and brown hair tied back in a long braid. She didn't have dark skin like the man, so it was apparent that she was most likely not his biological child.
"Hey buddy, are you alright?" They finally reached her.
It dawned on her that she must look like a man. She was quite dirty on account of the rubble she had to crawl out of earlier. She only wore one gauntlet on her left arm and she was slouching so her feminine features were not visible for their perspective. On top of that, her hair was wildly resting around her face.
"Do you need some help?" The young girl bent down to get into Tifa's face.
"C'mon man, we'll take y'a to Rocket Town and get you rested up." The man pulled Tifa to her feet. Her hair was still wildly hanging about her body, covering the rather large lumps on her chest that would seem hard to miss. "Yo sure are light, we'll gettya sumthing to eat."
Tifa gasped in surprise as the little girl grabbed onto her hand and start pulling her out of the forest. Tifa had hunch over and run to keep up with the girls speed and height.
"I'm Marlene and that's my daddy. But you don't have to call him daddy, his real names Barret Wallace." The girl seemed very excited and eager to bring this new stranger to Rocket Town. "What's your name?"
Tifa came to a dead stop. Her own name brought back a lot of memories to her, mostly bad ones. The time when she was happiest was when she used her fake name to be a member of SOLDIER. Though she hadn't appeared to be smiling during those times, she was deep down on the inside. She had been with Sephiroth, that's why she had been so happy.
"Vincent Valentine," Tifa said in her now perfected, deep masculine voice.
"Hey look at that! It matches your eyes!" Marlene pointed to an open shop window where a long crimson traveling cloak was hanging.
Tifa looked at it carefully through the glass. It did match her eyes. She went into the shop to get a better look at it. She picked the fabric up and felt the soft cotton material in between her fingers.
"Are you going to buy it?" Marlene had followed her into the shop.
Tifa looked around and noticed that it was a traveling gear shop. She took many things about the gear there into note. She pulled the cloak off the manikin and placed it on the counter for purchase. Then she saw a pair of large golden boots that matched her claw. Tifa grabbed those as well and put them onto of her cloak, as well as several pairs of socks to fill up the boots and make her taller, making her look a little more like a man. While she was at it, Tifa took a single leather glove to go over her right hand.
"We just got a new shipment of guns in, would you like to take a look?" The young male shopkeeper asked, even though he didn't wait for an answer to pull out a long black case. He opened it up to reveal a triple barreled hand gun with a charm that had a three headed dog hanging off the hilt. Tifa fell in love with it instantly. "Cerberus, not many people can use this gun, only 50 were made. The sheer force of the shots sends people flying backwards."
"Do you have any clips for it?" She asked, grabbing a leather holster off the wall.
"As a matter of fact I do, 50 handgun clips." The man put another box on the counter. "Is that all for today?"
"Yes," Tifa said, pulling out a large money pouch from somewhere in her leather jumpsuit.
"Your total is 75,000 Gil." The man blinked eagerly.
"That's a lot of money!" Marlene said, her eyes wide and full of innocence.
Tifa rummaged through the pouch and pulled out the correct amount. She put the pouch back in her pocket, acting as if it weren't strange at all to be carrying 75,000 Gil on her person. She had made a hefty sum of money when she was working for SOLDIER, but she had no where to put it so she carried it with her. The man behind the counter thanked her before going into the back room. Tifa put on her new apparel. The boots brought her up to about 6'1", though she'd need practice walking around this them.
"Let's go!" Marlene beamed up at Tifa before pulling her out of the shop and back onto the street. "Daddy's probably already at home and wondering where we went." Marlene pulled Tifa down the street. Tifa almost tripped a couple of times, but she managed to make it back to the Wallace's place without any major tumbles.
"There you two are," Barret said as they burst through the front door. Barret was sitting at in the kitchen of their home with another blonde haired man sitting across from him as well as a young man with short brown hair and a head band sitting next to him. Sitting on the counter was a girl with orange hair tied back in a pony tail.
"Daddy this is Vincent Valentine!" Marlene let go of Tifa's hand to run and hug her father.
The girl that was sitting in the counter hopped off to get a better look at Vincent… err, Tifa.
"I'm Jessie, this is Barret, Cid, and Biggs. There's another guy here too, he's in the washroom though. His name is Wedge." The girl pointed to each person in the room as she introduced them.
Tifa didn't say anything; she was shy around new people.
"What brings you to these parts?" the brown haired boy so named Biggs asked.
"Shinra Scum…" She said with a frown.
"Hold on a second, you saying you're against Shinra?" The blonde haired man, Cid, said, with a country accent.
Tifa nodded.
"Welcome aboard yo!" Barret jumped up.
"What?" Tifa tilted her head to the side.
"We're an anti-Shinra group. We could defiantly use more members." Jessie said, giving a shy smile and blushing slightly.
"Aww Jessie, don't start flirting with him already. We just met him; don't want him running for the hills this early." Biggs said.
"I'll join then…I guess." Tifa leant up against the wall, thinking over her decision.
"You think it wise to trust them?" Sephiroth leant his back against Tifa's.
"I never said I did. I have to avenge your death some how." Tifa frowned.
"Are you really doing it for me or are you doing it for yourself?"
"…Both of us, I guess."
"No, think about it Tifa. Who are you doing this for? What will it prove in the end?"
"Redemption."
"Tifa… you've done nothing wrong."
"I don't want to live anymore without you."
"The same way I can't come back, you can't come to the promised land."
"I don't want to wait here for something I'll never get back." Tears began to roll gently down Tifa's cheeks.
"Hang in there," Sephiroth wiped a stray tear away from her face.
"With what? There's nothing left for me."
"There's always something. I don't want you giving up."
"It's not fair."
"It never is."
"Shera, mark 4. She's a beaut!" Cid called said to Tifa from behind the steering wheel.
The anti-Shinra group, also known as Avalanche, was now in an airship, flying towards Midgar, planning on taking out the receptor plates so Shinra couldn't take away any more of the planets like with their power source. Tifa found out that Shinra was stealing the planets life away with all their Reactors and that most of the members of Avalanche had lost some one dear to them because of Shinra's greed for power. Though she remained quiet, they seemed to accept her presence. A few times she caught Jessie staring at her.
They met up with a few other Avalanche members before they had headed off to Midgar. One of them was a large red cat-like creature named Nanaki, who spoke the human tongue and another one was a smaller black cat the wore gloves, a crown and a red cape who also spoke the human tongue. The third other member picked up was a young Wutainese girl named Yuffie.
"So… how old are you?" Yuffie asked, invading too much of Tifa's personal bubble.
Tifa put her gloved hand over the girls face and pushed her backwards.
"Hey! You meanie! I was just trying to make conversation!" She pouted.
Tifa didn't want to talk to anyone; she was still brooding over the death of her loved one.
"You're annoying." Tifa said calmly.
Yuffie stomped off somewhere in the ship, muttering to herself.
A/n: I tried to make this chapter as sad as possible. I don't know if it worked, but it really tugged my own heartstrings and I cried while writing the parts about Sephiroth. (I'm really sappy- I can't help it) I had to stop so many times while writing this, I apologize that it took longer then usual for the update to come out.
Reviews:
Thanks for the review xSefirosux! I couldn't just stop updating this story; I'm enjoying writing it so much. Sometimes, you have to go through the bulk of depression to reach the happiness on the other side.
Thanks for the review ZakuReno! Tifa can't die, she's indestructible. :D However, Sephiroth is another story. There is always light amongst the dark though, so hang in there.
Thanks for the review Lilith! I'm glad you think so. I've always hoped my stories would make people squirm in their seat, I just never thought I could do it. I hope you continue to enjoy my story.
