As Tifa drove away, she could only think about how Cloud had changed so much. Her mind was so out of it that she jumped when a girl jumped on the hood of the buggy, chasing a monster down, she had almost got hit. Tifa stepped out of the car and found a familiar face standing on the other side of the car.
"Oh my god! Tifa! Hi!" The girl stood about 5 feet tall, her hair was dark, her skin was tan, she was wearing foreign clothes, and holding a 4 point shruiken, she had been chasing a Zemelett for food. The girl's name was Yuffie. She had helped Cloud and Tifa when they went to fight Sephiroth. Even if she did steal their materia at one point, they had given her one last chance. "Oh, hello Yuffie," Tifa rubbed her eyes out, she looked like she had been sleeping.
"What the hell were you doing, sleeping while driving?" Yuffie looked at Tifa confusedly. "No, I was just thinking." Which was true. She had been thinking. Too much obviously. "Well, ya know, it's fortunate that you almost hit me, I haven't seen you in so long, but... Um... I kinda got mad and slashed the engine before I knew it was you," Yuffie smiled innocently.
"You what?!" Tifa looked at the hood. Sure enough, there was a gaping hole in the hood that went right through the engine. "Sorry," Yuffie apologized, "But hey! Now we can hang out and spend some time together!" Yuffie took Tifa by the arm and led her towards the forest. It wasn't like Tifa had much of a say in it, seeing as it was either that or stay with the trashed buggy until she starved to death. At least Yuffie seemed to know how to live out here for extended periods of time.
"Well, let's go back to my camp!" Yuffie was obviously excited to have company. Tifa made a note to hide any materia she had on her before she went to sleep. They walked back to Yuffie's camp, which was in the middle of the field next to the river. When they arrived, Yuffie took out a knife and started cutting up dead monsters. Tifa kind of looked at her in disgust as she cut up the wings of a Zemelett and some other monsters and tossed the bits together. A minute later she handed Tifa a plate full of cooked bits of monsters.
"Um... What exactly do you call this?" Tifa poked at the bits of meat with a chopstick. She could have sworn one of the bits had moved on it's own. Yuffie grinned as she grabbed a huge chunk of meat with her chopsticks and forced it into her mouth. "Chop suey" she managed to say with her mouth full. Tifa felt a wave of nausea flood her body and she suddenly wished she had decided to stay with the buggy and starve to death. "I'm not all that hungry anymore," she lied.
After Yuffie was done stuffing her face, to which Tifa had to close her eyes and pretend to have a headache to keep from losing her lunch all over the place, Yuffie and Tifa were sitting around the fire quietly, when Yuffie suddenly asked, "So, have you seen Cloud?" Tifa looked at Yuffie, assuming this was just a way to start a conversation and said, "Yeah, he's still getting over Aeris, of course." Yuffie looked down into her lap. "Oh... I see. I feel bad for him."
Tifa started to feel a wave of spite for Yuffie, but she quickly shrugged it off as a misunderstanding. "Yeah" That was the only bit of conversation that entire night. About a half hour later, Yuffie laid down on her sleeping bag and went to sleep. Tifa sat there looking into the fire that entire night, until about 1 the next morning, when she finally dozed off in the sleeping bag Yuffie had let her use.
--End Chapter 4--