DISCLAIMER: Final Fantasy VII and its characters are wholly the properties of Square Enix. This story is written purely for entertainment and not profit.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: I know the slow burn is killing some readers, and I can sympathize. I, too, enjoy stories in which these two are together with no barriers between them. They have to remove these barriers first though, and that's what this story is all about exploring. Okay, onward to the next chapter.

Healing of the Heart

Written by daBOSSz

Chapter 14

The feel of the sword was still familiar, but his neglect for the weapon brought himself great shame. Still, if he truly was to move past the guilt that had been crushing him, then honoring the memories that the sword brought should be the next logical step.

Having just been cured of Geostigma the day before, and having assured the spirits of his dearly departed friends that he was indeed all right now and no longer felt alone, Cloud knew he had to follow through on his words. As he took a moment to stare at the Buster Sword that he had just pulled from the ground after having left it there for who-knows-how-long—at the same spot where Zack had perished—he gave his friend a smile through the weapon.

"No more lamenting," he said to both himself and the sword. "It's time to make things right."

He spent the next hour cleaning and polishing the sword, giving it the same care that he had once shown the blade when it was his primary weapon. He did not stop until every speckle of dirt and rust was removed and the blade looked almost new again. He sheathed it on his back for the first time in years, silently made a vow that he would indeed continue carrying on his friend's legacy, boarded Fenrir, and drove off in the direction of Midgar.

Unlike twenty-four hours ago, when he and the town's infected children were cured and celebrations erupted, the Sector 5 church was now entirely silent. The only noise that remained was the slight sloshing of the healing waters, the same waters she had brought that he knew he would forever be grateful toward. They did more than just rid him of a terminal illness; they also provided him with the first step in reenergizing his commitment to live on for those he cared the most about.

He made his way around the pond to the front of the church, where her flowers still dotted all over. He pulled the sword off his back and found a slit within a slab, then inserted the blade into it. As he started backing away, a gentle ray of light shined through the broken ceiling, perfectly illuminating the sword. It was almost as if the church had expected him to bring the sword there, and he certainly would not be surprised if that was the case given what she had already shown she was capable of.

"Thank you," he said, hoping his departed friends could hear him, "both of you, for everything."

He gave himself a moment to close his eyes and smile at what he had just done.

"I'm not alone, not anymore," he repeated to reassure them, then opened his eyes to give the sword one more look. "Now, neither are you."

"No more lamenting," Cloud said to himself, reusing the same three words that he had said on the day after he was cured. "No more delays."

He knew he would have to face this moment. He had put it off long enough. He wanted to wait until he felt he was fully ready, but he realized that he never would be. With his deliveries on his second day bringing him here, and with his schedule now giving him a decent enough respite, he decided that he was done dragging this on.

Steadying his heart rate, Cloud drove Fenrir into Gongaga. Sadly, the town looked exactly the same as it did when he first visited two years ago, still neglected by outsiders who focused more on fulfilling their own needs first. Cloud knew that he was partially here for his own needs as well, seeing as how his guilty conscience would never fully be cleared without this vital step, but he could sincerely declare that he was truly doing this for them.

He still did not know what he would or could say. Sure, it may not have been his fault that his memory was scrambled when he last visited, but now that his mind was free and he remembered exactly what he had told them last time—that he had never heard of their son—what could he possibly say this time that would convince them of his honesty? How could he possibly tell them the truth without them thinking that he had betrayed their son by taking his identity and forgetting him completely? He was still struggling to trust himself, and now he was pleading for a chance that they could trust him after he had outright lied to their faces?

He finished his delivery first, providing him additional time to think. He dropped in a question about the Fairs during his brief exchange with the package recipient, and the gentleman confirmed that they were indeed still living in the same building.

"We in Gongaga can't go anywhere," the man informed. "We don't have the means to move."

That only made Cloud feel worse, and now he was not so certain that the additional time to think did him any good at all. When he finally arrived in front of the Fairs' residence, he could feel every nerve tissue in his body vibrating nonstop.

Cloud took a deep breath, reached up to the door, and gave it three loud but gentle knocks. He continued to inhale deeply while the next few seconds dragged on like hours, unwilling to show him any mercy. He tried to steel himself as best as he could when the knob turned and the door finally opened, revealing the aging face of a woman.

"Cloud Strife?" she asked, instantly recognizing him.

"Yeah, it's me," Cloud confirmed as calmly as possible. He wondered if she could see him shaking as badly as he felt he was.

"It's good to see you again," she smiled at him. "Please, come in."

Cloud exhaled. The simple fact that she had not slammed the door in his face was a minor victory in his book. It did not help relax him too much, but it was a start.

"Thank you," he responded, taking his first step into the Fairs' home. "It's nice to see you again, too."

Tifa was fortunate that the weekend was bringing her usual rush of customers. Busying herself with her normal bar routines during a steady stream of patrons had always helped create distractions that she needed to take her mind off any troubling thoughts refusing to leave her alone. Thanks to Marlene and Denzel's help, the noon wave came and went without a hitch.

It was early afternoon when the bar was empty once again. Marlene and Denzel had just asked for permission to play outside, and Tifa was about to grant them permission when the citywide emergency alarm suddenly began blaring. Instantly, Tifa turned on the radio, catching a report that had already started.

"…declared in the Midgar-Edge area. Repeat: a state of emergency has been declared in the Midgar-Edge area," came the announcement. "Early reports indicate that it's a zolom monster approaching Edge from the south. Repeat: a zolom monster is approaching Edge from the south. Residents are instructed to stay indoors, underground if possible."

"Marlene, Denzel," Tifa commanded. "Go hide. Now."

The children needed no further instructions, taking off toward the secret basement. Tifa ran to her bedroom and put on her combat gear, slotting herself with restore, poison, double cut, and counterattack materia. Her phone rang the moment she finished gearing up.

"Reeve," Tifa answered without even checking, confident about the caller. "Where is it?"

"Tifa," Reeve spoke from the other side. "It's approaching the spot where Midgar's and Edge's border is."

"I'm on it," she assured and hung up, knowing the time for talk could wait.

Tifa ran out, locked up Seventh Heaven, and sprinted southwest toward the location Reeve gave her. Off in the distance, the tiny figure of the zolom gradually began looming larger, and as Tifa approached, screams could be heard from numerous people still outside, some of whom she assumed had never seen the sheer size and scale of a zolom before.

The alarm continued to ring throughout Edge. Tifa leaped up onto a low roof and looked around, catching a glimpse of a few red berets heading toward her position. She did not know what the WRO troops had been ordered to do, but since she was not part of their brigade, she decided to take charge of the situation herself and deter the zolom before it arrived in the city.

She rushed towards the beast, hoping to catch its attention. When the monster continued to lunge forward after she stepped slightly to the side to see if it would notice her, Tifa activated her poison materia and hit it with a bio3 attack. The spell landed and, much to Tifa's delight, immediately inflicted the creature with poison, beginning the process of slowly draining its health.

Partially in pain from the damage-over-time spell and now distracted, the zolom turned its attention to Tifa. Instantly, she leaped ninety degrees left to hold its focus, then took another ninety-degree leap left to turn it away from the city. Tifa backed away slowly, hoping the monster would try to strike at her as she did so. When her hopes were answered, she jumped up and struck it with a flurry of punches directly under its chin before it could reach her with its jaw to bite her. The double cut materia kicked in the moment she threw her final punch, and she experienced instant déjà vu as her airborne blows mercilessly pummeled the beast for a second time.

Two WRO troops had reached the beast by now, and upon taking note of her actions, they fired from the monster's sides so as not to hit her. However, they mistakenly stood too close to the creature, and their timing could not have been more imperfect; the attacks that the beast endured had brought its rage sky high, and it started swinging its massive tail uncontrollably. Unfamiliar with timing their leaps to avoid the swipes, the two unfortunate souls were violently struck and sent flying in opposite directions, forced completely from the battle. Seeing this, the other handful of WRO soldiers decided to stand back and attack from farther away, but they found minimum success doing so with the increase in range weakening the effectiveness and accuracy of their attacks; their firearms only managed to hit the zolom's lower back side and tail if they were lucky.

Quickly noticing that she had found herself primarily alone in this fight and that none of the WRO soldiers had drawn the zolom's attention off her, Tifa continued to move backwards every few seconds, gradually guiding the beast away from the city. It tried several times to strike at her with its bite, even switching up its rhythm to throw her off balance, but she successfully evaded its attempts each time. The creature roared in a frustration that only exacerbated itself when Tifa delivered another two waves of kicks and punches directly to its upper underside and head, all the while watching as the poison continued to languidly tick the zolom's health down.

Now infuriated past the point of rage, the giant beast began glowing red, preparing itself to launch its beta attack. Tifa took a quick scan of her surroundings and noticed that, aside from herself, everyone and everything else was now quite a distance away, exactly as she had hoped. The average citizens of Edge would not stay afloat if hit by the zolom's beta, and she was uncertain about the WRO troops, but having had enough combat experience from her time traveling and her recent endeavors, Tifa was fully prepared to bear the brunt of its most powerful move.

Flames roared out of the beast in all directions, scorching both the land and the air around its immediate vicinity in a ball of fire. Tifa stood still, absorbing the scorching heat of the powerful beta, knowing that she could not have escaped its radius even if she tried. The attack lasted for quite some time, but she endured every second, mentally convincing herself that there was no pain even as the fire scarred her body.

The moment beta ended, her counterattack materia kicked in, and she pounced on the beast for a few hooks and jabs before quickly activating her restore materia and instantly healing herself of all the damage beta did. The zolom lunged at her one more time, desperately trying to strike her down with its bite, but failed yet again. With the monster now fully weakened, Tifa decided the time had come to deliver the final blow. Beta had done its job, activating her limit break, and she launched herself forward to strike the beast with her beat rush, somersault, water kick, and dolphin blow in such quick succession that the zolom had fallen unconscious before it could even consider countering.

Tifa gathered herself slowly once the battle was over, using her restore materia a second time to make sure that any wounds still remaining were fully healed. A minute later, a WRO vehicle arrived on the scene, and her phone was ringing again.

"Tifa, the soldiers just reported to me that you took care of the zolom," came Reeve's voice. "Were you alone?"

"For the most part, yes," Tifa answered. "They did help though."

"Incredible," Reeve commented. "Go ahead and head home once you're rested. I'm sending out more vehicles to transport the body back to the swamp. The WRO will collect whatever evidence we can to find out why the beast got anywhere near Edge."

"Thanks, Reeve," Tifa said.

"No, thank you, Tifa," Reeve replied before they both hung up.

Slowly, Tifa made her way back to Seventh Heaven, mentally running through a list of questions about yet another near miss on Edge from another creature that should not have appeared so close to the city. She could not say that she was surprised, since full answers had yet to come from the previous incident involving the elfadunk stampede. Cloud had also informed her on more than one occasion of the increase in aggressiveness from the monsters he encountered during his deliveries. However, she did wonder how a zolom that only lived in swampy environments could make its way out of its natural habitat and even across some rather rugged geography. Although she understood that the WRO was doing its best with the resources it had to find the answers everyone was seeking, it did not sit well with her that the people of Edge may have to put up with these kinds of attacks for the foreseeable future, infrequent as they may be at this time. She did not know exactly what this would mean for the planet, but it certainly was not helping its healing process.

It would not be until she finally made it back to Seventh Heaven that Tifa discovered just how exhausted she was, and it would not be until she had a chance to catch her breath at home that she realized she had just taken down a gigantic zolom monster all by herself. For the first time that day, Tifa allowed herself to smile.

The meeting with the Fairs went as well as it could have. Cloud had apologized to them for what he said during his last visit and explained the entire story in as much detail as he could recall. He made sure to highlight what his memories had recovered about Zack's heroism, courage, determination, and ultimate sacrifice. He told them about the guilt he felt afterward, how he bemoaned his inability to protect Zack from both death and having his legacy tainted, and how he tried to do what was right by moving the Buster Sword to the Sector 5 church to finally honor both Zack and Aerith.

Cloud did not know how to feel—or how he was supposed to feel—whenever the Fairs reassured him that he did nothing wrong and that he should not feel responsible for anything that happened to him as a result of Shinra's experimentations. They were reassurances that he had heard hundreds of times before—primarily from AVALANCHE members and especially from Tifa—and he knew it should have meant something significant for the Fairs to share in their sentiment, but he still could not figure out what was the right way to respond to their words. He could only hope that profusely thanking them for what they said was proper enough, even as he was convinced that he should have responded differently.

At the very least though, he had taken the right step, and he could rest slightly easier knowing this.

Cloud had just hopped onto Fenrir when his phone rang. He checked the number and answered it.

"Reeve, what's up?" he acknowledged.

"Cloud, bad news and good news," Reeve said. "There was a near attack on Edge today by a zolom monster, but Tifa beat it back all by herself."

That stunned Cloud. It was not that he did not believe Tifa was capable, but to hear that she actually accomplished such a feat was still incredible. Suddenly, Cloud felt his heart swell up with pride, although he remained calm while speaking with Reeve.

"That's great to hear," he replied. "Did you say a zolom though?"

"Yes," Reeve confirmed.

"That's concerning," Cloud remarked. "What was a zolom doing out of the swamp?"

"That's what we're trying to figure out," Reeve answered. "The WRO is on it. Between you and me, I suspect there is a connection between this and the elfadunk attack, but we'll see once we've analyzed the evidence we're collecting."

"Okay, thanks for the update, Reeve," Cloud said.

"My pleasure," Reeve responded. "You take care out there."

The call disconnected, and Cloud sensed himself smiling. Even with all the experience that they had gained from their battles two years ago, zolom monsters were still no joke, and for Tifa to have taken one down solo was something he found himself wanting to boast about to the world. The longer he thought, the more his chest heaved forward with a sense of fulfillment at her accomplishment.

The Cloud Strife who rode into Gongaga that day had been a nervous wreck. The Cloud Strife who exited from the Fairs' home minutes ago was still uncertain and confused. Now, after learning of Tifa's victory, the Cloud Strife who rode out of Gongaga felt larger than life.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: As far as I know, at the time I'm writing this, there is no exact date for when Cloud moved the Buster Sword to Aerith's church, so I'm working it in as something he did immediately after he was healed. Quite frankly, I can see him doing it at any time afterward, because he has his reasons for doing it quickly or after a while.

Okay, fourteen chapters down. As always, your feedback is greatly welcomed. See you next chapter!