Author's Note: Disclaimer found below.
And now a fandom service announcement from the author.
ADVENT CHILDREN COMPLETE. Oh my dear sweet lord, there's mostly-naked Loz. Also, he's got the only onscreen kiss in the entire thing. I SWEAR TO THE DIETY OF YOUR CHOICE, I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP. It comes out in June in North America. BUY IT AND THANK SQUARE ENIX FOR THE GLORY THEY HAVE GIVEN US, HALLELUJA.
*pants, calms down* Ahem. Thank you.
Chapter title is lyrics from the song "Inner Universe" by Origa (the Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex season one theme song).
(25: Try Not To Fall While Flying, Nor Forget How To Dream)
"Red Phoenix of the South," Tifa gasped out, as though the designation for the room should explain everything.
But Aeris snarled as she shook her arm free of Tifa's grasp. "You will not touch me so again!"
Tifa stared at her friend for a moment, stunned. She'd just saved Aeris and... and... And shouldn't her companion's hair look darker than that, even in this lighting?
Aeris moved back, her bare hand slapping Tifa's back and pushing her forward. "Go. Fix it."
Brow furrowed, Tifa turned to study the changed room, heated air currents causing hairs that had escaped her braid to drift around her head as though she were in zero-gravity again. It only took her a few moments to begin to recognize the sequence to the jets of fire, and a few more minutes to become confident of the way through.
She glanced down. Most of the floor had been drawn away, revealing only darkness below. She swallowed - she'd have to time her jumps well to get through, as well as taking the difference in gravity into account. Overshooting her target would be just as fatal as lingering too long.
"What are you waiting for?" Aeris snapped.
Something was wrong. Really wrong. Tifa bit her lip.
"Well?"
Tifa took several steps back, glancing only once at Aeris before looking away and focusing on the fires again. This was easy. She could do this. She could fly like the Red Phoenix of the South.
Phoenix.
Phoenix King.
Her eyes closed of their own accord. A saffron cloak, sand...
She shook her head to clear it, opened her eyes and focused again, and ran. And jumped.
And soared.
Her muscles seemed to delight in the heat and lowered gravity. Flame lanced out ahead of her and behind her, then the platform she'd landed on shot fire - but she'd already leapt to the next, then the next. A few seconds' pause to gage the next jump was all she needed as she cris-crossed the chamber, cutting a few jumps shorter by pushing off of the ceiling or changing direction by kicking from the walls.
Almost there. She could see the far end of the room, where another set of metal doors waited for her.
Pain suddenly seared across her thigh.
She realized her distraction too late, and cried out as she flailed and caught the edge of the next platform, her jump cut short by the way her body seized in pain. Her side thudded heavily against the stone pillar supporting the platform, but in the lesser gravity, her fingers' grip did not shift.
Panting, Tifa hung where she was, trying to fight down the overwhelming pain. The heated metal of the platform burned her fingers, but she couldn't change her grip. She could smell burnt meat - her own leg - and she didn't want to think about it.
But it wasn't only the pain the made her whimper. She closed her eyes.
It wasn't Aeris, back at the door of the chamber waiting for her. It couldn't be, because Aeris was dead. Long dead. She'd died before Cloud.
Cloud, Tifa's paladin who would come and save her if she was ever in trouble she couldn't handle on her own... who couldn't because he was dead. Dead by her own hand.
But she'd been in trouble. She'd fallen from the sky, she'd climbed the Gold Saucer as a WEAPON tore it apart, she'd walked the desert, she'd fought and lost, she'd been captured...
And he'd taunted her and kept her going and rescued her and healed her and shared with her. Loz had been the source of most of her trouble since they'd escaped the Orbital city, but he'd also gotten her out of a lot of it, too. He'd healed her when she'd lost to him. He'd stayed with her when he could have left and had taken her with him when he did leave.
He'd hurt her in ways she hadn't thought she could be hurt, opened ancient wounds and cut new ones, and he'd done it trying to be closer to her. And it had been her choice to let him get as close as he had, hadn't it.
Maybe she'd needed to hurt and bleed. Nothing else had gotten her blood to flow again, after she'd been frozen and empty for so long. No one else had done it. Vincent had tried, but he'd been as paralyzed as she had.
Loz had taken her into her enemy's lair, and she'd seen the small differences that could become rifts between them. The royal family wasn't the solid, impenetrable force that it appeared to be. They - their threat - could be overcome. Maybe that hadn't been the case when Loz had attacked her on the space station, but it was now - now that he'd been with her for so long.
It was almost as though he'd been burned away when they'd fallen from orbit, in the fire of re-entry, only to rise again in a new form. Changed.
The Planet could still be saved. It was no longer impossible.
If she could just get back to the Planet.
Her whimpering had stopped, and she hung limp, breathing deep and calm.
Tifa opened her eyes.
Another burst of flame shot over the platform she clung to - she could feel the added heat of it on her fingers. As soon as it retreated, she braced with her left foot - she wasn't ready to move her burned right leg yet, but she'd have to - and pushed herself up. She gained the platform just in time to jump to the next, the fire barely missing her as she leapt.
It seemed easier, all of a sudden. The pain seemed to sharpen her senses - the jumps were easier to gage, her motions quicker. By the time she reached the last platform - too far from the area in front of the door at the far end of the chamber to leap - she knew what to do.
Flame licked at her heels as she leapt into the air, not toward the door, but toward the wall. Her feet barely touched the vertical metal before she ran several steps, then pushed off again, even as flame erupted from the metal where her feet had just been.
She flipped in the air, landing gracefully for all of a second before her right leg gave out. Tifa groaned, curling over the wound and finally getting a glimpse of the burn before she closed her eyes to block out the sight. Well, she thought ruefully, she'd known the adrenalin rush wouldn't last long, hadn't she.
After a few moments she was able to look up again. The metal door was in front of her, and to either side of it were dark alcoves.
She shook as she pushed herself up, leaning heavily on her left leg. The alcove on the left was closer; she made her way to it and looked inside.
It contained no control panel for either the door or to reset the room - only a Shinra-issue Hi-Potion.
Tifa nearly laughed, grabbing the bottle and cracking it open over her wound without hesitation. She had to grit her teeth at the sting of mending flesh, and she collapsed to the floor again, but her leg was soon as good as ever. The only remaining sign of the burn was the wide gash in her thermal clothing where the material had melted away, the edges charred in stark contrast to her pale skin. A Restore spell could've repaired that as well, but she'd no such luxury.
She moved to the alcove on the right side of the door, expecting to find the control panel there, but the space seemed to be empty. Maybe it was another illusion, Tifa thought, reaching inside.
Something in the dark alcove suddenly jabbed into the back of her hand. Tifa yelped and pulled her hand away, but there was nothing but a pinprick of blood to be seen.
She barely had time to fear that it had been another trap, this one some sort of injection that the Hi-Potion had been meant to counter, before she was proven wrong. The gouts of fire behind her abruptly ceased, the full floor returning in a mechanical cacophony. The wide doors split open, revealing a dark room beyond.
"Took you long enough." Still wearing Aeris' form, Jenova moved swiftly toward the newly opened door, thermal stockings protecting Her feet from the heated metal underfoot.
The woman smiled frostily at Tifa as she passed through the door, but Tifa only smiled back. She had reason to smile now.
Once again, when they'd both entered the next room, the door behind them shut. Tifa tensed slightly.
"What now?" Jenova asked in the darkness, Aerith's voice sounding shrill when used so sharply.
"I don't know," Tifa admitted. "There are only the four celestial animals." Maybe this room would be connected to some other constellation?
There was a sudden whirring noise that made her jump, and a dim green glow appeared near the center of the room and began to grow brighter. Tifa thought of Mako for a moment, but the glow was not from Lifestream - only from a simple green-on-black computer screen on a pedestal in the center of the square room.
She moved closer so that she could read the text that appeared on the screen. The first line was almost a shock, but she quickly realized why her name was written there. The jab to the back of her hand had probably been the machinery taking a blood sample to confirm her identity; Rufus had planned for the possibility that she'd come here all along. At the second line, however, she simply stopped and stared.
"Tifa Lockhart:
What were his last words to you?"
The cursor blinked a few lines below that, and she could see a keyboard mounted in front of the monitor on the pedestal, but Tifa simply stood and stared.
Jenova stepped closer and read over her shoulder. "His? What does this mean?" She huffed, moving away again, agitated with anticipation. "Just answer it, you're supposed to know."
"I do know," Tifa said softly. And so did Rufus. He'd been there, in the Northern Crater, and had heard Cloud's final words to her as well as she had, just before she'd killed him.
Her hands felt heavy as she lifted them to the keyboard, each keystroke as damning as the fall of Meteor itself.
"Maybe one day you'll meet the real Cloud."
She said the words aloud, whispering, as she typed, and stared at them a moment longer before she hit the Enter key.
The monitor blinked out, plunging the room into complete darkness. The entire wall opposite the door shifted open, breaking into quarters. The moment its surface cracked, bright light filtered through.
Tifa closed her eyes and lowered her head. When she looked again, Jenova was stepping forward into the newly revealed half of the room. It was brilliantly lit, every panel of the walls and floor and ceiling lit from within, and in the center was a simple glass pedestal.
Jenova's hands reached toward the object on the pedestal, caressing without touching as She made a small, pleased sound. Then She took it in Her hands and held it to Her chest as a mother might a child, and Aerith's lips twisted into a sickening, gentle smile.
"You can stop wearing her face now," Tifa said calmly. "It's disrespectful."
The lips drew tighter, skin shading dead blue in mere moments. Jenova lifted Her face to regard Tifa like a satisfied cat. "It's not as though it matters any longer, is it," She responded. "Though it was worth it, to have your mind set to the task, instead of having to listen you harp at me the entire time."
She turned and walked swiftly back past Tifa, still holding the Black Materia to Her breast. "Let's be on our way, then. Be mindful of any traps on the way out, will you? And don't forget..." She paused at the door and looked over Her shoulder at Tifa, Her face half hidden by silvery forelocks. "Should I not return to the Planet safely, there will be little of the Planet for you to return to."
Leaving the Lunar Temple was a simple matter; the most difficult part was getting back into the environmental suits in the room of the White Tiger. That was the first moment that Jenova set the Black Materia down and Tifa got a good look at it.
Tifa had handled the Black Materia before. She'd gotten a good look at it. It had been a polished black sphere, strangely heavy, carved with swirling Cetra designs.
The designs on this orb were raised in relief, not carved in. Tifa wondered if it was her memory or the Black Materia that lied.
Back at the entrance of the Lunar Temple and breathing recycled air again, Tifa looked up at the Planet in the sky. Home. It was up to her to save it, wasn't it?
Would Loz really work to destroy the world if Jenova failed to return?
She'd have to risk it. Jenova was already a little ways down, descending the steps of the Lunar Temple; Tifa took a running start and threw herself forward, barreling right into Her.
Jenova let out a screech that caused the suits' intercoms to warble with feedback. Despite the encumbering suit, Tifa struck several blows with unrelenting force as they tumbled down the steps. Something in Jenova's air pack gave with a small hiss.
Tifa disengaged and reached for the Black Materia in Jenova's gloved hands. Jenova's grip was strong, but the force of their tumbling ripped Her hands away. Tifa leapt free as they reached the bottom, landing several feet away.
She didn't hesitate - she threw the Black Materia as far out into the silver plain as she could.
Jenova screamed. Tifa turned to see the Queen drawing a long, narrow, sharp dagger from a hidden pocket in Her suit's thigh.
She tried to twist away, but there was little she could do in the environmental suit. Jenova leapt over her, turning in the air, and knocked her flat on her back. The dagger came down in the same motion.
Pain shot through Tifa again, but it wasn't a killing blow. The blade jabbed down into her arm, and through, and out the other side. And deep into the rocky ground. Jenova shoved the knife down to the hilt, pinning Tifa.
Not a killing blow - except that it ripped through Tifa's suit and she was losing air.
Laughing, Jenova moved back a step - then raised Her hand, aiming a spell at Tifa's arm. The shock to Tifa was that the glow of the spell was green, but she quickly understood why.
"There," Jenova murmured, panting a little. Her Restore spell sealed the suit around the blade, but left Tifa's arm inside bleeding, and left her staked to the ground. If she tried to rip free, she'd damage her suit again in the process.
"Stay," the Queen commanded, before simply walking off, out into the cratered surface of the Moon.
Tifa tried not to struggle, though the instinct to try to pull away from the pain was strong. She had to stay still. Only staying still would preserve the suit and keep her alive.
She could hear Jenova mumbling to herself, over the intercom, for what felt like a long time. Maybe She wouldn't find the Black Materia again at all... but her mumbling was suddenly cut short by a delighted cry, and Tifa's heart sank.
Jenova did not approach her victim again. She simply began the long trek back to the landing module. It took Tifa a while to realize what was happening.
She was going to be left here. Alive. So that she'd simply run out of air...
There were a few moments of blind panic, during which she still remembered not to move.
"Jenova!" She called out hoping that the intercom wasn't out of range yet. "Hey!"
After a moment, she heard the Queen's cruel voice again. "Have you realized yet that I'm leaving you here?"
Tifa didn't answer. As flat as she could be on her back with the bulky air pack under her, she stared up at the Planet and smiled with a little cruelty of her own.
"Tell your son I'll miss him too."
The intercom shut off, but not before Tifa heard a shocked and disgusted hiss escape the Queen's lips. She held on to her smile a little while longer before closing her eyes, heart pounding.
She vaguely hoped that the damage to Jenova's suit might cause Her to run out of air before she could return to the module, but she doubted that fate would favor the Planet so well at this point.
She opened her eyes some time later; she wasn't certain how long it was. She knew that Jenova, and her only chance of returning to the Planet, was long gone.
The Planet still loomed overhead.
Another wave of panic washed over her, but this time she pounded her free hand on the ground, screaming an angry stream of obscenities that would have impressed even Cid.
There was no one to hear.
How long would the air in her suit last? How much had she lost?
The Planet hung in the darkness, still and peaceful from here.
"You can't come, can you," she murmured softly, thinking of Cloud. He was long gone, returned to the Lifestream, and she was too far away for him to hear her. Far away from the Lifestream itself. Even her madness had left her; she'd never hear Cloud's voice again...
Wait.
Tifa made a slight choked sound, followed by another, her mouth splitting wide.
She began to laugh. All these years, she'd thought herself mad, but it really had been Cloud's voice she'd heard, hadn't it. He'd been there, whispering from the Lifestream, looking out for her. He'd appeared in the Tower the first time she'd been captured and had helped her escape. He'd told her not to let Loz die. He'd appeared when she'd been about to die and caused her to speak the words that had stopped Loz from killing her - the words that had changed everything.
Cloud had still been her knight even though she'd killed him.
And she'd never figured it out.
And now it was too late. She couldn't even be reunited with him in death. She wouldn't return to the Lifestream - if she couldn't hear him now, she was surely too far away to return herself.
She wasn't sure when her laughter turned to sobs and her tears began to flow, but time hardly mattered.
Further Author's Note:
I decided to combine the two canon designs of the Black Materia that I know of for this. (That would be the black orb pictured in-game, and the more purple-ish orb with gold scrollwork as appears with the life-sized sculpture depicting Sephiroth preserved in the Northern Crater. Sadly, I've only ever seen photos of the statue; it's apparently in the Square-Enix museum in Japan.)
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.