DISCLAIMER: Characters/setting/etc not mine liek whoa. Square pwns your souls.
21. Reunion
Waiting for a train, Cloud wasn't entirely sure how the system worked. He knew he had never been to the slums of Midgar during his training, and anywhere he'd needed to go on the top plate, he could either walk to, or the army had provided transportation. He stood before the tattered and graffitied line map displaying the train's route, contemplating his destination and how to get there, unaware of the void of people around him caused by the monstrous sword strapped to his back.
That is, he didn't notice the void until someone stepped into it. The back of his neck tingled and he turned his head slightly, just enough to see a dark-haired girl hesitantly approaching. She cleared her throat delicately and reached out to tap his shoulder. He turned before she could touch him, and he must have been glaring because she withdrew her hand and took a step back. A determined look settled over her face and her hand dropped to her side. There was no mistaking her body-language; despite her casual clothing, everything about her screamed "martial artist".
"Sorry to bother you," she said, calmly, "but would your name happen to be Cloud Strife?"
He felt his eyes narrow, just a bit. "How would you know that?" That was his name, but she wasn't familiar at all.
She blinked a few times, obviously confused. "I'm Tifa -- Tifa Lockheart, from Nibelheim? We grew up together?"
He wracked his brains for a memory, but came up with nothing. A huge blank, like everything else. "Tifa?"
She smiled, perhaps a little nervously. "You don't remember me?"
He shook his head, just once. "No."
"Ah." She took a deep breath and looked away. "Well I thought if you were Cloud, it was nice to have seen a familiar face, especially so far from home. Sorry to have bothered you." She turned and pushed her way back into the crowd of people who no longer seemed intimidated by him and had closed in, disappearing no less than three people back. Another face-less stranger.
He didn't have a chance to say anything when she'd given her farewell, of a memory that wriggled free to remind him of a burning heat so intense it felt like he was choking...