The blackness faded away and Tifa was lying in an open field. The sun beat down almost cruelly, already warming her exposed arms and legs. She stood up and looked around. She was alone. There was nothing as far as the eye could see, which in the clear, thin air was many miles. The grass was all dead, and though there was a stiff breeze blowing from the west, it did nothing to cool the air. In fact, it seemed to be the source of the heat.
Already sweating, Tifa rubbed her arm across her forehead. She wasn't entirely sure what was going on. She had always heard that people who were caught in abandoned stories were simply found with no memories. She had never heard anything about this. It seemed vaguely like her original game-world. For one thing, it smelled of unrefined mako. She had missed the smell. Nobody except for the other people who had been in the game with her ever knew what she was talking about, and she had actually taken a long time to come to the realization that mako even had a smell, though, she had always known that something was missing since she had left her world.
She had only realized that the smell of mako was what she was missing, through trial and error. She had realized slowly, after coming to the baseline, that, Cloud and Sephiroth smelled like home; as did a few of the other people who had come with them, but not everyone.
Tifa's heart ached. It felt wonderful to be back in what seemed to be her home; though, she wondered what had become of the rest of the people who had been in the fic with her.
She had never quite been able to forget her home, as many of the other characters from her world had. Cloud had made sure of that, however inadvertently. His constant, and at times ridiculous, apparent inability to accept the baseline had always reminded her of where she had come from. This was entirely due to the fact that he was constantly bringing it up, every time his memory restarted, and he attacked Sephiroth or Jenova. Sephiroth had always been a good sport about it, though, and Jenova wasn't really worried about it, since the fights always ended with Cloud lying on his back under one of her tentacles, while she calmly explained the baseline and the situation that they were in now. Tifa now smiled slightly. In the end, she had always been the only person who Cloud would listen to.
Now, the only thing that Tifa couldn't understand was the last few seconds before the world had gone black. Sephiroth, who had always been patient with Cloud, had threatened to kill him. Link's response had been conditioned. Link had always disliked Sephiroth, and seeing him about to actually kill Cloud, and being equipped to stop him; it really wasn't surprising that he had.
Destroying Jenova had been a mistake. Jenova (who took it upon herself to be everyone's mother) had moved to protect Sephiroth and taken the shot for him. Tifa figured that Link probably hadn't known that it wasn't storyline. Suddenly the full impact of what had happened to Jenova hit her. Tifa really hoped that she was alright.
"She should be fine." Tifa muttered under her breath… "Oh, here I am… alone for a few minutes and already talking to myself."
"Pardon me, but you are not alone," a deep toned voice said, directly behind her.
Tifa whirled around, to face whoever it was. She found herself looking out across the plains, directly over Red XIII's back. She looked down to meet his fiercely intense eyes.
"God, Red, don't sneak up on me like that." Tifa said, putting her hand on her chest.
Red XIII grinned frighteningly up at her.
"If you remember, Tifa, I do in fact have a name. I know that we don't work together all that much anymore, but I would have hoped that you would remember that at least." He raised one catty eyebrow as he said this, and his grin faded.
"Right… Nanaki." Tifa said, after a moment's thought.
"Ah, good. You did remember," Nanaki said, he seemed pleased.
"I wouldn't forget, Nanaki." Tifa said, reassuringly.
Nanaki shook his head, "I can simply never be too sure, Tifa. Many people have forgotten."
Tifa smiled at him then, looked around. "Have you seen anyone else around?" she asked.
"Seen? No. Though I have smelled that one… Seifer, I believe his name was." Nanaki looked into the wind, and continued, "He is upwind, about half a mile… He is already traveling in a westerly direction. I smell also monsters… If this is, as it appears to be, our world, then he will not be able to use his magic here. We should run to help him."
Tifa nodded, and she and Nanaki began running west, against the arid desert wind.