Author's Note: Disclaimer found below.
Chapter title is lyrics from the song "Zerospace" by Kidney Thieves.
(21: Took Me To The Silver People)
It was peaceful.
There were hands on her, and there were dim voices that she couldn't understand, but none of it mattered. Her eyes were closed, but she knew that that she lay on the ground and that there were flowers around her. She took a deep breath, inhaling the scents of earth and foliage.
Hands again. Raised voices. It was getting harder to ignore them. The moment that she thought of trying to understand what they were saying, the scent of flowers faded, and the voices sharpened to clarity.
"What were you thinking? You didn't have to bring her. We don't need her any more."
"Didn't Mother say I could have her when we were done?"
"You're lucky we brought Materia instead of a Phoenix Down, then. Did you even think of that?"
"You would've brought more than one Phoenix Down."
A third voice, higher-pitched but just as irritated. "Look, just get her on the bike so we can go home, will you?"
The hands began to change position to lift her, but Tifa opened her eyes. She knew these voices, and her stricken expression reflected that knowledge.
There was earth, but no flowers - that must have been some residual hallucination from what had happened. She could remember Loz's arms tightening around her, and then... a merciful gap in her memory. She knew it to be the kind side effect of a Revive spell; Phoenix Down let you remember everything.
She was lying on her back on broken earth, and Loz was kneeling over her, smiling. "Hey."
Tifa tried to crawl backwards, horror flooding her senses, but Loz simply lay a hand on her chest, pushing down enough to hold her still. "Gonna go home now," he said patiently, then lifted his hand and took hold of her arms to help her up. "C'mon."
One of the other voices - the ones that filled her with such dread - made a disgusted sound. From the corner of her eye, Tifa saw Kadaj turn on his heel and move toward one of two large motorcycles.
Loz pulled her to her feet without giving her much say in the matter. As he did, Yazoo passed, staring her in the face with narrowed eyes before mounting behind Kadaj.
Her legs refused to work, knees buckling under her; Loz had to drag her to get her to the other motorcycle, though he didn't seem to mind.
She was shaking. There was no pain now - a high-level Revive spell was thorough enough for that, too - but there would be. They had her. The Princes had her, and they were taking her back to Midgar, back to the Tower, back to the Queen. They were going to hurt her again...
During the long journey back to Midgar, the thrum of the motorcycle under her and the by now familiar presence of Loz holding her in front of him gradually wore away at the terror. She couldn't give in, she reminded herself; she had to fight it. Because this time, she really did know where the Black Materia was. She'd rather die than let them know its location. She'd have to make them want her dead. Perhaps if she went after Jenova...
The only problem with all of this was the first thing she'd heard, before she'd been quite awake. Yazoo had said that they didn't need her any more.
The idea that they might already know the location of the Black Materia was more terrifying than anything, even more so than the threat of torture. And if they didn't need her any more, then they knew.
The journey was long enough for her to begin to wonder how they knew.
Night fell. The lights of Midgar, and the glow of the city's Mako reactors, were in sight on the horizon by the time Tifa realized exactly what had happened on the Highwind.
Yuffie hadn't gone and taken Vincent's place so that she could try to kill Loz. She'd gone to let Loz out. Yuffie had betrayed them - she'd figured out the moon vault's contents from what Cid had said, too. And then she'd gone and told Loz and sold them out, when the airship was just about as close to Midgar as its path was going to get. Tifa remembered, as she'd fallen, seeing one of the Highwind's gliders departing - that had probably been Yuffie, escaping.
Maybe Yuffie had thought that by telling Loz and letting him go, she was getting the Princes off her friends' backs. It seemed that no one had expected Loz to try to take Tifa with him.
But how had Loz's brothers known exactly where to find him, then? How had they gotten there quickly enough to be able to revive their corpses?
They had to have known in advance to be out there waiting. There had been a tracking device in Loz's crown, but that was long gone. Yuffie must have told them.
Tifa suddenly realized why the Princes had been right behind them, when she and Vincent had gone to the Orbital City. They hadn't known about the space station any more than Tifa and Vincent had - until Yuffie tipped them off. She'd probably called them from the launch base in the Nibel Mountains, right where Tifa and Vincent had last seen her. No wonder she'd been so irritated when Tifa had called her from orbit.
It all fit with deadly precision, but why in the world was Yuffie helping them?
It wasn't as though any of it mattered any more. The Princes and the Queen knew where the Black Materia was hidden. Soon, they'd have it, and they'd summon Meteor, and the Planet would be put out of its misery.
The war was as good as over; there was nothing Tifa could do against all of them at once. Unless she found a way to die more quickly, she had nothing left but to live whatever time was left as Loz's plaything - if she were lucky enough to avoid the rest of his family's attention. If not... it would probably hurt a lot more.
It was frightening that belonging to Loz was actually the best-case scenario, assuming she had to live at all.
She hoped that her friends could simply leave her to her fate. What was the point of running any more? What was the point of rescuing her? Maybe she could find a way to tell them to stay away.
When the motorcycles finally came to a halt inside what had once been the Shinra Tower, and Loz reached for her to help her dismount, she took his hand. She didn't let go until they were in the elevator, traveling up to the top of the building - he pulled her close then, and leaned casually against the glass wall with one arm low around her. Maybe he was worried that her knees would buckle again.
Yazoo glared at her most of the way up, rarely looking away. Kadaj carefully did not look at her at all.
"Mother isn't here." Clearly disappointed, Loz spoke before the doors opened on the sixty-ninth floor, his head tilted and eyes unfocused.
"She went to Shinra as soon as Yuffie's call came through," Kadaj said with a shrug. "She was angry."
Loz frowned in confusion. "She didn't summon him?"
"He tried to run." Kadaj grinned.
Loz laughed.
"Don't worry," Yazoo murmured, his glare replaced with a poisonous smile. "She'll see you when she gets back."
If it was some kind of threat, Loz didn't seem to take it as one. He smiled at Yazoo and led Tifa out as soon as the elevator doors chimed and opened, his arm still around her.
Tifa kept her arms crossed, unobtrusively holding herself, and kept quiet. If Jenova had gone to Rufus Shinra, in Kalm, where the Highwind was heading... her friends were as good as dead. Assuming that Yuffie hadn't been lying about Rufus summoning AVALANCHE in the first place. Tifa found herself hoping that the Wutian woman had been lying. Even alone, the Queen had no problem taking care of herself, thanks to her particular abilities.
Most of Midgar was deserted now; it had been ever since Sephiroth and his Queen had taken power. It hadn't been until after Sephiroth's death, when the Princes had been created, that they worked together to sink and seal the land around the city and flood the Slums. Midgar was now an island in a lake full of as many vicious creatures as the Princes could find and keep alive; the only access was by air, or by the single well-guarded highway by which they had entered.
The Tower was the exception. Jenova and her sons kept a community of humans as slaves. The lobby that the elevator opened into held a few dozen well-groomed humans, many offering refreshment for their returning masters, all of them bowing their heads.
The slaves were there of their own accord, willing subjects of the Queen. It was sickening, to Tifa, that so many would accept Jenova's rule - but these same people also accepted that the world was at its end. The less fatalistic of those who served her might even see her as a way to escape. The unquestioning loyalty of these slaves ensured that covert infiltration of the Tower was impossible.
Loz released her, motioning to one of the slaves - a girl no older than Denzel, with pigtails in her brown hair. Like most of the slaves, she wore little more than a form-hugging wrap skirt; the more revealing the clothing, the less chance of concealed weapons. The slaves' loyalty was unquestioning but not unquestioned.
"You. See to her," he said simply, relinquishing Tifa into the girl's care.
Tifa did not mistake Loz's choice of servant for her. A loyal child would not betray them, and Tifa could never bring herself to harm a child, which she'd have to if she were to try to escape.
And the girl was indeed loyal. She looked up when Loz addressed her, and though she smiled as she moved toward Tifa, her eyes flicked from Loz to Yazoo. When she looked at Yazoo, her expression was one of subtle adoration, though her attention alone gave her away.
At a motion from the girl, Tifa followed her to one side, into what had once been a suite of high-ranking Shinra executives' offices. Walls had been removed, and now the rooms were a spacious bedchamber.
It was an improvement from the last time she'd been to the Tower, at least, Tifa thought.
She let herself be bathed and tended to, and she ate when food was brought to her. The entire time - almost in spite of herself - she tried to concentrate, to think of a way out of this. Some way to forestall the doom of the Planet. Some way to fix everything.
There was nothing to be done. She was out of options.
Hope left a cold vacuum in its wake. She hadn't even realized, before, how much hope she'd still had.
When there was nothing else left to do, the silent girl made her exit, and Tifa slept. She wasn't sure how much later it was that she was roused by the sound of soft voices.
"Don't."
"She kept you away."
"It wasn't her." Loz hesitated. "Well. Not just her."
"It's not right, Loz. She's not..." Yazoo trailed off as though struggling for words.
Loz lowered his voice a little more when he responded. "She's different."
"You like her too much," Yazoo rallied.
"You can have her too. I don't mind." Loz's tone said quite the opposite, in fact. Probably he thought it would be fun to watch.
Yazoo was not amused. "I don't want her, Loz." He seemed to gather himself. "Mother was angry when you didn't come back from the Gold Saucer, but Kadaj realized that you must be trying to work the location of the Black Materia out of her. So Mother decided to believe that too, and she - she just waited for you. She was excited..."
The breath he took shuddered, as though he were crying. On the bed, Tifa was hard pressed to stay still and keep her eyes shut. She wasn't sure what would happen if she disturbed them at this point. It probably wouldn't be good.
"But you weren't, were you?" Yazoo finally went on. "You were just... you were just playing."
"No, no, no, I didn't, I wasn't -" Loz sounded as though he wasn't far from tears himself, the way his breath caught.
"You abandoned us."
"No!" Loz shouted, and Tifa jumped, but the room went silent the moment the word left him. They must have been holding their breaths, waiting for her to react, like children afraid of waking a parent.
Tifa remained still. She was certain that Loz knew that she could not possibly sleep so deeply as to have missed his outburst, but feigning sleep seemed the only defense she had.
The silence stretched so long that she thought that they'd silently left, or that she'd dreamed the exchange, but eventually she heard them moving again. The door of the chamber very quietly opened and closed.
Tifa was unable to sleep after that.
By the time Loz returned, the clouds outside blushed with dawn through the large windows that composed one wall. She kept her eyes closed when his weight settled on the side of the bed.
He touched her a little, but for the most part, simply sat there.
She wondered if he was watching her.
He finally murmured, "My brothers aren't happy with me."
Tifa opened her eyes to stare at the pink tones igniting the clouds from their gentle blues and violets outside. She wondered how long he'd known that she was awake.
She did not look at him. He sat still and quiet for a long time, leaning back against the headboard; Tifa eventually realized that she could see their reflection in the glass. He seemed to simply be watching the growing light outside through the north-facing windows. His expression seemed calm, but his arms were folded tightly.
It was a strange moment, him confiding in her, but her lack of fear was what struck her as strangest of all. She really was growing too used to him.
There was a sudden commotion outside the door. Loz sat upright, then pushed himself off the bed, glancing back and holding up one hand to tell Tifa to stay where she was. The silken material of his loose pants - the only garment he wore here, in his home - rustled as he nearly crept toward the door.
"Where is he?"
Tifa, who had turned to watch, noticed that her heart was pounding only after she recognized the voice. She'd been terrified that Jenova had returned, she realized. But it was not the Queen's voice that carried through the door.
The door burst open and Yuffie stomped in, still wearing the last clothes that Tifa had seen her in, and looking more than a little travel-worn. Her expression was as full of the promise of kindness as the hurricane in Costa del Sol had been, and she paused in the doorway only long enough to focus on Loz. "You!" She shouted, stalking toward him without a trace of fear. "Can't you do anything right!"
She emphasized her final word by cuffing Loz across the face.
Loz's head snapped aside, and Tifa couldn't see his face, but she saw the sudden set of his shoulders - the change was immediate. He lashed out, catching Yuffie's side and effortlessly tossing her toward the windows.
The ninja landed gracefully, straddling the glass with her feet on the supports between panels, and launched herself back at him. She flipped in the air, aiming a series of kicks toward his face; he blocked, and she back-flipped away only far enough to drop and attempt to sweep his legs out from under him.
Tifa only watched for a moment, a little stunned. Watching Loz fight was something of a different experience than fighting him herself. From here, she could better appreciate his skill... And Yuffie's. She was stronger than she had been, the last time Tifa had seen her fight. More graceful.
Yuffie dodged several blows, then whirled as he punched again, catching his head with her elbow to stun him as she took his wrist and threw him. The move looked ridiculously unlikely, given how much smaller she was then he, but Tifa knew that the motion was based in balance rather than mass.
Loz tumbled through the door and out into the lobby, and Yuffie ran to follow. It wasn't until then that Tifa stood, tying the white satin robe she'd been given tightly around herself and moving toward the door. She didn't know if there was anything she could do, but she wouldn't see an opportunity if she hung back, either.
She stood in the doorway, watching with a slightly shocked expression as the battle raged around the open space. There were slaves scurrying around the edges of the room, trying to keep out of the way or simply standing behind pillars with their eyes closed, clearly terrified. Kadaj lounged on the wide steps that led up to the seventieth floor, dressed just as Loz was, casually paring and eating pieces from an apple with a small knife.
Tifa took a step forward.
"You don't want to interfere," Yazoo murmured, frighteningly close. He was leaning against the wall next to the door, arms folded (loosely, unlike Loz's had been before), comfortably at rest.
She froze in place, staring at him for only a moment before returning to watching the fight.
Yuffie leapt toward her opponent and caught him in the chest with both feet; Loz slammed back-first into the doors of one of the elevators, the metal buckling under his shoulders. It didn't slow him down at all. He ducked and punched Yuffie in the stomach when she struck at him again. She doubled over, but grabbed one of Loz's ankles, yanking it upward and dropping him with her knees landing squarely in his stomach. He whipped his legs up, catching her head with one foot on either side, and flung her away; she tumbled through the air and skidded to a halt at the base of the stairs, and barely paused before running for him again.
It was only a few blows later that Loz caught her, simply closing his wide grip over her head. He spun and bashed Yuffie's head into a pillar.
Tifa was at the wrong angle to see the impact, but the concrete fractured, dust flying from the far side. There was a distinct lack of resistance as he drew his arm back and slammed Yuffie's head into the pillar a few more times.
It was all Tifa could take. She bolted forward, ignoring Yazoo and shouting. "Loz! Stop!"
His gaze flicked up, toward her, the mad grin fading a fraction -
Yuffie's foot came up and kicked him in the chest, sending him skidding backward. Blood covered half her head when she lurched into Tifa's view, but the green ripples that washed over her were unmistakable - she'd cast a Regen spell on herself.
The young woman's face was contorted with anger under the blood - anger displayed and turned upon her more openly than Tifa had ever seen in her former teammate before. Too stunned to do more than blink, Tifa did nothing to defend herself as Yuffie threw a roundhouse punch at her face. The blow caught the side of her head, and Tifa staggered, pain exploding across her senses.
She managed to raise her arms to block the following jabs to her torso, but only a few landed before the shock gave way. Tifa lashed out, blocking more aggressively, then landing a punch to her opponent's shoulder. If she could just stun the other woman for a moment maybe she could stop this -
Another blow sent Yuffie weaving to the side, but Loz's fist caught her and threw her back. He rushed at her without a glance toward Tifa, but Yuffie dodged around a pillar, then jumped and kicked off of the pillar to kick at Tifa's head.
Tifa flung herself backward without moving her feet, swinging to the side as she whipped forward again and caught Yuffie's boot. With a shout, she flung her opponent hard into the tiled floor.
Loz was there again, stomping at Yuffie's head; Yuffie rolled out of the way. Had her hair been any longer, it would have been caught under Loz's foot.
Tifa gritted her teeth. At this rate, with Loz's "help", there'd be no chance of a peaceful end to this.
Yuffie sprang to her feet again, snarling and kicking at Loz, but when she righted herself and tried to punch, Tifa caught her wrist. "Yuffie, wait -"
The room spun and she was suddenly on her back several feet away, and Yuffie was coming for her. Loz was reaching -
"Enough!"
She'd had no chance of peacefully ending the battle, but at a single word from Kadaj, Loz stilled and stood straight again. It seemed that Yuffie knew enough to obey Kadaj as well - she relaxed and straightened, tossing her head to clear her short hair from her face, though she kept her disdainful gaze on Tifa. After a moment, Tifa shifted to sit up and adjusted her robe around her shoulders again. She couldn't meet Yuffie's eyes.
Kadaj got to his feet, tossing the knife and apple core to the floor in the direction of one of the slaves that hadn't yet fled the room. He didn't spare the young man a glance, but kept his feline gaze on his elder brother. "Mother will be here soon," he said softly, and trailed one hand lightly across Loz's shoulders as he passed on his way to the elevators. "Come."
Tifa didn't realize how close behind her Yazoo was until he stepped around her, following Loz and Kadaj toward the elevator. Kadaj glanced over his shoulder, jerking his head at the women, the move nothing so gentle as a nod. "Clean up."
Inside the elevator, Loz turned, and was looking at Tifa as the automated doors shut.
It was another moment before Tifa realized that Yuffie was simply walking past her, ignoring her and moving toward. Two servants closed in behind her even as another two moved toward Tifa, the pigtailed girl extending her hand to help her to her feet.
Tifa stared after the other woman. She was... comfortable here. At home. Accepted. Tifa tried to swallow, but her mouth felt horribly dry; her voice was hoarse when she called out. "Yuffie! Why?!"
Yuffie looked over her shoulder with an unreadable expression, then turned away and stepped through the doors, and the slaves closed them behind her.
Disclaimer: The Final Fantasy VII compilation (in particular, Advent Children), its story, and characters are the property, copyright and trademark of Square Electronic Arts L.L.C., and no ownership or claim on said property, copyright or trademark is made or implied by their use in the work(s) of fan fiction presented here. This fan fiction constitutes a personal comment on the aforesaid properties pursuant to doctrines of fair use and fair comment. This fan fiction is non-commercial, not for sale or profit, and may not be sold or reproduced for commercial purposes.