Disclaimer: I do not own FF7 or FF13.
Everytime she sleeps, she relives her past. Although time cannot hold her prison, it holds her mind captive. The hands on the clock tick backwards, rewinds and rewinds until she's about to reawaken. Then everything simply fast forwards in a flash of white, the same white light that floods her eyes when her eyelids snap open. Her pupil constricts and her vision clears, leaving her staring at the stone ceiling of Etro's Sanctuary. "You are awake?" Caius' voice filters in, breaking through the slowly degenerating screech in her ears.
"What does it look like?" Lightning retorts tiredly, sitting up properly as she massaged her temple, "Why am I here?"
"You've destroyed the W.E.A.P.O.N.S." Caius answered, and only when Lightning turned her eyes towards the voice did she see him seated on the floating throne with one leg propped up by his side, "However, was the sacrifice worth it?"
"Sacrifice? What are you-" The moment she tried to return to her feet, blistering pain scorched through her chest and radiated into her limbs, leaving a throbbing ache that nearly left her crippled. Gasping, Lightning collapsed onto her knee and barely held her own back straight.
"In your desperate attempt to rid is of those beasts, you would risk the lifeline of the planet?"
"Lifeline? What are you talking about?" Lightning grunted roughly, clutching her chest as if that could somehow lessen the pain.
"Your time has run out." Caius simply states darkly, eyes narrowing into a deep frown, "The Lifestream has pierced you. It will slowly eat away at your strength, until you are stripped of all power and will. It is a poison; nothing more, nothing less. You have handed Sephiroth victory."
"No." Lightning bit out as she returned a fierce glare, "No. I haven't."
"I have enough trouble fighting one clone." Caius said, "More so two, three, or however many there are. How can you, now nothing more than a weakened Goddess, defeat both Sephiorth and JENOVA?"
"I know what I'm doing."
"I am only doing this for Yuel. It is her wish that I aid you."
"I know." Lightning stressed as she slowly returned to her feet again, "I was there. The Unseen Chaos spoke to me. I know what the bargain is."
"Then it would do you good to remember it." Caius drifted from the floating throne and stood beside her facing the other way, "I have been given a purpose, and although my corpse has rotted away, I will accomplish this task Yuel has asked of me. You are the Goddess of Death and Reincarnation, and I am but a lingering ghost. When Yuel is forever freed of her sorrow, it is you whom I wish to see at the Gate. That burden is not for Yuel to shoulder; she is but a child."
"Caius." Lightning breathed slowly, "I know what I'm doing."
"Then what are you hesitating for?" Caius responds, "Give me the Heart of Chaos then."
"Thanks, but no thanks. I think I'd rather kill myself and let the world end if I had to spend eternity with you." Lightning retorted sarcastically.
"Then Hope-"
"No." Lightning immediately shot-down Caius' suggestion, "Hope's a kid."
"He would do anything-"
"No. Just as you don't want Yuel to suffer, I don't want him to take on this responsibility. He's too young. I don't want him to become like you."
"Is that so." Caius drawled, raising an eyebrow at Lightning's jab, "Or do you truly desire that woman?"
"Of course!" Lightning hissed, eyes flaring with frustration, "She's the one thing I want for myself. Saving the world, making my sister and my friends happy; all of that stuff's a given. But I want her."
"Is immortality what she wants? Even at the expense of Hope's devotion?"
Biting her lip, Lightning tore her eyes away from Caius and glared at the ground. She knew the Heart of Chaos wasn't something she could force onto Tifa, but she god honestly wanted Tifa to have it. The feelings that the fragment had were contagious, but it had only influence her insistence to a certain extent. Lightning was sure that she was obsessed with the idea of simply having something, or someone, that she wanted. There were no explanation, no practicality involved, no logic and reason, but to simply live outside of her own restrictive counter measures that have long grown overbearing and oppressive. If she couldn't have what she wanted, but only had to give and give, then what was the point in salvaging what little humanity she had if she were to be driven insane by solitude in the future? She was being selfish, Lightning knew that, but she wanted to be selfish. However, Hope wasn't included in any of this. He's still a child in Lightning's eyes, the very same young boy she had took under her wing, no matter how much he had grown in these countless years. His misguided feelings of love towards her shouldn't be exploited, and Hope's devotion wasn't something Lightning wanted to use for the furtherance of her own battle against Sephiroth. Hope represented the selflessness, the unwavering loyalty, innocence, generosity, and altruism, while Tifa represented her sin: a living proof that Lightning wasn't only a Goddess held up on a pedestal, but human with the same emotions as any other regular person. Tifa was her greed and selfishness, an embodiment of her defiance against whatever the Lifestream, and even Bhunivelze had intended for her.
"Another clone has made an appearance." Caius says quietly after a moment of silence, but Lightning could tell that his words were just another attempt at urging her, "The words he utters... I fear he has grown obsessed with you." Turning her stare away from the ground, Lightning glanced at him from the corner of her eye, prompting him to continue, "Perhaps... you have known all along that he sees you as a vessel? An empty Goddess fit for JENOVA's will."
"If he wants this body, then he'll have to come and get it." Lightning bit out, "He'll never have all of my power once I give my Heart away, and there's no way for it to return back into my body."
"Even if it is a fraction of your power, combined with JENOVA and Sephiroth's strengths, he will be nearly unstoppable."
"Nearly; but not unstoppable." Lightning responded, "Sephiroth doesn't realize that if he wants my power, he can take it, but in return, it'll also be his weakest link."
"The Heart." Caius concludes, nodding slightly in agreement, "But the world-"
"If I die in the process, then the world ends. If Sephiroth takes over the world afterwards, the world still ends. I know that Cloud and the others will stop him." Lifting her hand, Lightning frowned when her fingers started shaking and trembling as if some invisible force was tugging on her nerves. She could already see the Lifestream poison her further, turning her blood vessels black. "I want you to kill me if I fail. You know who I want to give the Heart to. What's left is if Tifa wants it or not because... then she'll have to die." A dark mass of Chaos started to congregate at her fingertips to form a black dagger as dark as mid-night. It floated shortly before dropping into Lightning's waiting hands. "I've already given one other the means to stop the Heart." Caius reached forth and deftly grabbed the dagger before sheathing it by his thigh. Lifting her head to stare at the clear blue sky above the Wildlands, Lightning walks forward into a portal that had swirled open before her. Caius followed shortly after her, both walking out onto the deserted wasteland before Midgar, "Find the others... and tell them to go to Edge. You too. I'm going to find Tifa."
"Very well." Caius agreed, casting an eye up at the flying Lindblum closing in on them before he left through another portal. Fire sparked between her fingers before she launched a fireball up into the sky. It lit up her position, and she watched until the flare died. Sounds of mechanic rumbled through the silence as the hangar opened before a transport flew out and towards her.
It was a relief to know that the remaining W.E.A.P.O.N had been defeated, and seeing that the Lindblum had picked up Cloud, Tifa and Aerith sans Rufus and the Turks was no real surprise. She made little chatter; ignored most people and the order from Raines for her to see him, and when she came across Cloud and Aerith who had rushed to greet her, she gave them a half-hearted lie. However, the worried look on Aerith's face made her seem as if she knew more than she let on. "I'll survive." Lightning simply said, giving them a firm nod despite the fatigue plaguing her body. "The W.E.A.P.O.N.S. are destroyed. That means there's nothing standing in the way between us and Sephiroth. It's a straight track now." Raines, Cloud, and Aerith could wait. Every step she took grew heavier and breathing suddenly became something she had to focus on. There were more pressing matters for her to attend to, more important people for her to see. After finding out where Tifa was, she bee-lined straight towards the door of the temporary room assigned to the fighter on the Lindblum, but lingered by the doorway. There was a distant sound of running water rushing through the nearby pipes, and so Lightning waited until it stopped before she slipped in quietly.
...
The hot water pounded on her to wash away the dirt and grime. After the Lindblum had picked them up, the top priority Tifa had was to find a shower. Truthfully, it was the only thing she could do. Everything else felt entirely out of her control, and so Tifa seized whatever she could and made the most out of it. Taking a shower was one of those things just within the realm of inner peace that Tifa could make her own. Stepping out of the shower, she wrapped a towel around her body and thus began her search for any suitable clothes she could wear. Everything else she had was either abandoned in the Nibelheim Inn, or simply too dirty to wear. There was a bathrobe neatly folded in one of the drawers so Tifa swiftly pulled that on, relishing in the soft fabric against her skin.
The moment she stepped out of the washroom, her instincts kicked in. Suppressing a gasp, Tifa's head snapped towards the other person already in the room. Seated at her table with her head held in her hands was Lightning. Although her head remained down as if she hadn't sensed Tifa's presence at all. A need to reprimand Lightning for disappearing again swelled in Tifa's chest, but she swallowed it down and released it with a heavy sigh. "So... is this going to be a new thing now?" Tifa asked, raising an eyebrow at the pinkette's unannounced intrusion. Lightning lifted her head at the question, but the moment Tifa had seen her azure eyes, Tifa could tell. There was fatigue brimming in her irises. Lightning rested back, leaning against the chair and all the sudden, she looked much older. Her skin was pale, nearly blue. "Lightning..."
"There's no time left." Lightning whispered, "I need your decision. Now. I'm only asking you this once."
Tifa held her breath, fists balled at her side, but not of anger or frustration, but of determination. "I accept."
Silence hung in the air as the azure blue eyes held her stare steadily. Tifa pursed her lips, her confidence wavering just slightly under Lightning's gaze. Just for a second, her eyes darted away and it seems that was what Lightning had been waiting for. "You're hesitating." Lightning stated simply.
"No. No I'm not." Tifa responded firmly, "I've thought about it and-"
"You haven't thought enough." Lightning breathed as she returned to her feet. Neatly tucking the seat underneath the table, the pinkette then leaned against the edge of the table.
"Light-"
"Tifa, I want you to make this decision. You need a reason, your reason to do this. Not anyone else's."
"I know." Tifa stressed, shaking her head as she rounded the couch before she plopped herself down, "I know that. Cloud and Aerith... they both said they would have it: the Heart of Chaos. There's Caius... and Hope... I just... After everything you've done-"
"I didn't do what I did thinking that people owed me." Lightning responded evenly, "If that's your reason then-"
"Then what do you want me to say?" Tifa interrupted, "You said that the world isn't fair, and I know that. I'm not doing this to make things even because that would be impossible. If you want to give me the Heart of Chaos then why are you asking me all these questions? Making me doubt myself, and think that maybe I don't want to spend forever with you? What do you want from me?"
"Because," Lightning murmured, "I want you but... I don't."
"What?"
"Immortality is a curse. You know it is. To have to watch everyone you've ever cared about die... Everybody else is moving forward, but you can't. You're the only one that can't."
"I won't... leave you behind." Tifa said softly. "Etro told me. The Light I love, she's there isn't she? Waiting just as she had promised, but I know... that I can't be with her. Not anymore because you're here now. She's you, but you're not her and you can never be her. I don't want you to be her either. But whenever I see you, I see her. You're both just as hard-headed and stubborn. You care about the people around you but you never show it. Always cold and curt, and you say the meanest things just to stop people from doing things that they'll regret in the future. Jihl..." smiling bitterly, Tifa shook her head, "Jihl had told me that Light had always been a lonely child. You're the same."
"Your feelings for the fragment are influencing-"
"My feelings for the fragment, my feelings... for you..." Tifa laughed softly in self-deprecation, "I can't say I love you like I love her, but you're still special to me. I can't help but want to reach out to you. I'm not doing this because I feel indebted to you, I'm doing this because it's something I want to do." Leaving her place from the couch, Tifa walked towards Lightning steadily, and never once broke eye contact. There was nothing to be scared about, nothing to doubt, and she could only find assurance with every turn of her mind. She stopped at arms-length away. "I'm asking you for this. Will you give me the Heart of Chaos?"
"That's... not what you said before."
"People change. I might not have changed in the past three years, but... I feel I can change now. I've always said I wanted to be stronger than you." At that, Lightning's eyes narrowed slightly, but Tifa merely grinned, "And I am. I can move on, and... just as you've helped me, I want to help you. You can't take everything on by yourself. Let me help you." Reaching forth, Tifa gently took Lightning's hand in hers before squeezing it gently, "That's my reason and if you're not satisfied with it, then I don't know what I have to say to make you happy."
"I don't want you to suffer. Only when you're completely sure you know what you're getting into will I-"
It was effortless and easy. Lightning was wide open so Tifa glided in and stole an embrace. Her arms wrapped around Lightning's lithe waist, her palms resting against her exposed back. Taking a deep breath, Tifa found the lingering strawberry-rose scent that Light had always carried. Her thumb gently brushed against the smooth skin near Lightning's spine while she pressed her cheek against the other's. "I..." Tifa whispered into Lightning's ear, "I don't want you to be alone. Not anymore." Perhaps it was an illusion, but Lightning suddenly seemed all the smaller, as if she could hide Lightning away. She wasn't so unreachable anymore and not so much untouchable as Tifa had thought. It was slow, but eventually, Lightning did return her embrace and her arms tightened around Tifa as if to hold her there forever. She hadn't made a sacrifice tonight, and Tifa knew that to be the truth.
End of Arc 2: Nibelheim.
Here we go! Heading in to the last Arc of this story. I really, really want to finish this before school starts again.
Begin Arc 3: Cosmogenesis