ADVERSARY

Midgar Beach, 0005 N.C.E.

For once, it was his turn to watch her sleep. He held her, wrapped in one arm, the other softly brushing her hair from her face, the pale night sky shining off her lips as she breathed.

She'd flown him all the way from Nibelheim while he dozed in the spacious rear seat, neither of them having had much sleep since their night of passion at the inn. They'd landed at nightfall, and now Crono estimated about two more hours before sunup, when the guards would change posts around the city. It would be then that they'd have enough of an opening to break for the main city and find the whereabouts of Cloud, as the plan went.

She suspected Cloud would have made his way to the former ShinRa building atop the newly rebuilt plate in an effort to halt the invasion by taking the President hostage. They were positioned behind some rocks on the innermost edge of the beach surrounding the town, having left the helicopter out on a sandbar.

He looked toward the old ShinRa building, where the government had taken seat ever since the reconstruction following the war. He felt a wave of uneasiness pulse through him. He clenched his jaw and tightened his eyelids.

"Mmph…" she murmured, almost causing him to leap upward, throwing her to the sand. "Quit shakin' me…" she whispered with a lazy smirk, quickly shutting her eyes and grabbing on to him tighter.

"Sorry…" he replied, embarrassed at his nervousness. But he could not shake the feeling entirely. It resonated within, filling the uneven spaces in his consciousness, clouding his awareness.

You need to be calm…

He commanded himself. Preoccupation with any one thing led to foolishness. Forcing his breath to quiet and lengthen, he straightened his back against the rock, still careful not to jostle her, and began to silence his mind.

He may have been heading for a losing battle, but he would not allow himself to be defeated before it began.

His breathing became his sole focus as the troubling vibration receded into the background. Once he'd caught his stray, worrisome thoughts and cast them aside, he truly began to think clearly, inwardly murmuring the battle-mantras of the old swordsmith back home.

If I do encounter my enemy, I will not submit to him. I will stand, a fortress, in his path. Shall he persist, I will destroy him with honor, for being defeatable lies within him, but…

"Being undefeatable lies within me," He whispered, unintentionally. It slammed into him like the very tree that it all began under. Sitting against the rock, the meaning of the saying revealed itself to him. He'd always placed the emphasis on "destroy", and used the rest to simply follow suit.

Conquer thyself and thou shalt conquer all…

He'd heard that before as well. They were one in the same. A smile played across him. First, one of delirium. He couldn't believe that he was playing with words at such a grave period in his unfortunate life, yet something had "clicked" within him that he couldn't deny. He felt as though he himself was being emptied out. He felt less and less like himself and more and more like everything around him. He felt transparent.

He saw flickering glimpses of the all-too-familiar visions of himself fighting Sephiroth, suffering a felling blow to the neck, crumpling before his captor, letting everyone down, leaving Yuffie with nothing. Only, this time, he did not snap awake in a cold sweat the way he had every time before.

The visions disintegrated. In their place was a strangely compassionate, yet sad glow. He'd felt this aura before by the stasis chambers in the ShinRa Mansion during his enslavement.

You are so much stronger than you realize…

He heard her whisper in his deepest unconscious mind. It was Aeris, she who he'd heard much of, but never experienced. She was speaking to him. It was indescribably beautiful feeling.

But you need to listen…Cid is dying…

His serenity disjointed.

My time has come, but not his, not here…he was trying to save me, you must help…

"Alright…where are you?" It was a stupid question on his part. He knew the answer, he just couldn't believe that it was back where they started.

In the mansion…you have to send her here…she can save him…

"No. I'm not leaving her side." He protested, jaw clenching.

Think of her, not you…Cid's been like a father to her…

"Then I'm going with her."

You already know what you have to do…

It stopped his reply. She was right. The world was laughing at him again. They'd come so far to this point, fighting to stay together, and now they had obligations on opposite sides of the world.

There is no time…you need to be strong…

"I understand." He opened his eyes, still beneath the night sky. He turned toward her, lifting her up with his arm.

"Hmm?" She looked at him through half shut eyes, hair dropped in her face, a confused smile. He shook violently on the inside. It would be unbearable to separate from the only thing that had gotten you this far.

"Yuffie." He whispered, hollow. "Listen close…"


It is time…

A voice went off in his head. He stopped everything. He couldn't think.

"What the hell…" he murmured, barely audibly. A shaking metal hand made it's way to his eyes, rubbing them furiously.

It's time, Leon…

"Who are you?" He grimaced, staggering from the electrical pulses he felt flowing through him. It hurt like nothing he'd felt before.

I saved your life, Leon, it's time you did something for me…

"Oh shit…" He dropped to his knees, sweating, fighting with his whole body. Fighting the impulses blazing into him.

You've known this day would come…

"No, no way…you can't do this." He whispered.

She is upstairs with her son.

"Please, no…" Tears welled in his eyes.

Kill them. Now.

He tried to scream, tried to knock something over, but he couldn't. He was no longer his own. The base of his head turned toward the stairs. He began walking.

"Night, sweetie." She said, clicking off the stream of light from her son's tired face. The last hours had been the hardest. She had to be strong for her son, assuring him that his Father would be fine, assuring him that everything would be fine, yet she panicked inside all the while. Cloud should have been home by now. He would have returned home first thing. Something was horribly wrong.

The phones were down ever since the Midgar army locked down the city under Martial Law. There was no way of reaching Cid or Lucca or anyone else from her group. She would have gone out to find him on her own, but she would not have left her son alone. She, Leon, and Truss were stuck here until the blockades were lifted.

She sighed as she shut the door to her son's bedroom, leaning against it.

You'd better make it home…you'd just better…

She wouldn't know what to do without him, especially now. She closed her eyes, determined not to break down. Not yet. She would go downstairs and grab a drink. Leon was probably watching Burnt, as usual. Sometimes that show made her laugh quite hard. Cloud always thought it was stupid.

Stop. Stop thinking about it…he can take care of himself…

She stood up as she heard someone coming up the stairs. Then she relaxed. It was just Leon. She held a finger to her lips, signaling him to hush whatever he might say in the hallway next to her sleeping son. She stepped forward to meet him at the top of the stairs.

"Anything on TV?" She whispered, forcing herself to relax. He didn't answer. For a second, she stood face to face with him, slightly puzzled. "What's wrong?" she asked, concerned.

His arm whipping around behind her and snagging her long ponytail was the last thing she'd ever expected. He jerked her head down, wrapping his other arm around her neck, strangling her a few feet from her son. She couldn't make a sound. He stood there motionless, tightening his inhumanly strong grasp. The veins in her face felt close to explosion. He was trying to kill her.

Get a grip…get a grip…

She couldn't pry his arm loose. It was impossible. Clinging to consciousness, she reached down to his knees, grabbing hold and pulling his legs out from under him. Still in a chokehold, she tumbled down the stairs with him, painfully awaiting the split-second release that would come at the bottom.

They hit down with a brutal crash, tearing out the railing. His grip staggered. In an instant, she spun around out of his grasp, straddling him.

You need to end this as quick as possible…

She didn't have any idea why or how, but she couldn't think about it. She rammed her palm into his nose, collapsing the cartilage, and then drew back for the second strike, which would push the fragments into his prefrontal lobes; the two-hit-kill known to all martial artists.

Her heart skipped a beat as she completed the coup de grace, eliciting a rough jerk from his body, knocking her aside. She quickly returned to her feet, stepping back from his limp form.

His life was over. Just like that.

As she stood in shock, the momentary adrenaline faded. Her eyes welled up with tears. She'd just killed a friend.

"Why?" She gasped. Her teeth ground together as she began to cry in frustrated horror at the scene.

"Mom…what happened?" her son stood frozen at the top of the stairs. She faced him after a moment, trying to hide her tears,

"Sweetie, we have to get out of here…"

"What happened to Leon mom? Why'd you hurt him!?" It stung her to the core. She didn't know. She dipped her head. She said the words all parents dread most.

"I don't know, sweetie…" And she could no longer contain the sadness. She knelt over the dead body of an innocent kid who used to hang out at her bar, and who had put his life on the line to help them. Why did he try to kill her? It didn't add up…

She jumped and shouted in shocked rage as the front door burst open.

"Tifa? It's me, Lucca. Get out of the house! Hurry!" The burgundy-haired scientist stepped through the doorway, gun drawn. She paused and lowered the weapon as she took in the scene. Tifa stood over Leon's motionless body, face red with anguish.

"You're too late." She rasped. "I killed him. I don't know what happened, he tried to strangle me and I just killed him…" Lucca frowned. She was too late.

"He was a kid that Hojo turned into a weapon. Sephiroth got his hands on him that night after he and Crono saved me from the prison. He's been following us ever since." Tifa shook her head.

"That can't be…he's too real. He's just a kid."

"He is. But he can't control it when his program executes."

"I can't believe this…" Tifa lamented, sitting down on a chair. Truss slowly moved down the stairs, staring wide-eyed at Leon's body. Lucca lowered her eyebrows.

"I might be able to help him…if he's got biocircuitry in his brain that I probably could take a look at it, see if it could be put back on line. It sounds crazy, but I've done stuff like this before."

"If what you told me was true, that he'd just try to kill us again…"

"Not if I can reroute his synapses…I don't know…I need to think."

"I don't know if it's safe here, Lucca. We should go."

"I distracted most of the guards in this sector. They've been pulled to tend to a massive gas explosion in sector five. Besides, many troops are being pulled to Guardia. Apparently something's been taking out waves of them there. So no guards should be coming around here any time soon." A clear path meant that Tifa might have a chance at finding Cloud.

"I need to go, Lucca. Cloud doesn't even have his sword. He needs me…" It was a drastically dangerous thought.

"You're son will be safe here with me." The inventor said with as much confidence as she could.

"Thank you…Truss, you need to stay here with Lucca. Everything will be alright, okay?" It was such a lie, but what else could she do? She headed upstairs, strapping on her fighting gloves, and hauling Cloud's sword over her shoulder. Lucca stopped her as she ran for the door, pushing keys toward her.

"Take my car. Trust me, it handles."


Why did she have to fall in love with such an idiot? She cursed as she jerked the rudder of the helicopter, pushing the craft to fly faster. They'd come so far together, and all of a sudden, he broke his promise. He sent her away. He very well could be dead before she returned.

She could only hate him so much for it. She knew Cid's life depended on her, something she felt she owed him, after all that time he spent looking out for her.

Descending down into the Nibelheim Mountains, she honed in on the landing pad by the stark Mansion reactor. She killed her altitude, dropping down steadily.

She did not want to look at the detail inside the mansion. She did not want to remember those unspeakable days. She could not look the corpses of her childhood friends in the face again. She truly hated this house and the man it represented. He'd taken everything from her. He would not take Cid, and he would not take Crono. She would fight him herself.

She scrambled down the stairs, calling the pilot's name, her voice ringing out through the underground chamber as she stumbled through the darkness. At last, she came upon his slumped body, illuminated by a pale green glow before him. It was Aeris' stasis chamber. In her place was a stream of wildly rushing particles of the same green light. She was nearly mesmerized.

You made it, Yuffie…he needs you…

Still fixated upon the hypnotic light, she knelt down to Cid's unconscious body, and opened up her medical hit, dressing his wounds. It felt like an out-of-body experience.

I'm sorry I couldn't help you more…

Yuffie looked up, pausing her application of the tonic to Cid's gunshot.

"What about Crono…what's going to happen to us?"

Just believe in him…nothing can tear you two apart…

It almost made her break down in tears. It was the first positive thing she'd heard in seeming ages.

"Thank you, Aeris."

I'm so sorry for all of this…

"It's not your fault…"

Goodbye…

"Goodbye." Yuffie whispered, wiping her eyes.

"Don't say that. I ain't done yet…"

"Cid!" She shouted, budging him, roughly. He shouted in frustrated pain.

"Shit! Watch it, okay!"

"Cid…" she embraced him. He calmed down, too weak to be angry.

"Is she…is Aeris still in there?" He asked, nearly a whisper. Yuffie shook her head.

"She's free now…"


As the first ray of sunlight danced over the water, he rose to his feet, breaking his gaze from the sandbar from which she took off in their helicopter.

The way he wished it would not be the way it was, but he knew what he had to do. He would uphold their plan, alone.

The sand crunched softly as he walked toward the city, his heart still buzzing as it had been for the last few hours since she'd gone.

Silence…

The familiar green-hued focus took hold of his mind as he slung the SMG off his chest. Everything became deathly serene.

He was about to throw everything he'd been given right back at them.

THE END

Part Twenty-Eight