Manifestation
-Chapter Three, Part 1-
"Do we have to keep talking about this?" Tifa muttered numbly from under the covers piled on top of her. The news of Cloud's death had hit her strongly. She hated to admit it, but..."I still loved him," she whispered to herself. Suddenly it felt like the blankets were choking her to death, and she flung them aside and took a deep breath.
"Tifa, we can't stay here. This is serious...there is a serious problem going on here. We need to get to the bottom of this immediately."
"And exactly what good would I do? Why do you need me to help?" Tifa asked, with a sigh that seemed to seep from her aching heart.
"We need you because we need as many of our old friends as possible to fight this. So far we've been able to get into contact with Yuffie and Reeve. As soon as we can group everyone together, Red XIII is planning on taking a trip to the Forgotten City to study there, as well. The knowledge of the Cetra may help us in finding out what exactly this virus is."
Suddenly the clarity of the situation seemed to strike Tifa, and pry apart the grief locked around her heart. "This is bad, isn't it?" she asked. "It's happening again."
"Not necessarily. But Red XIII believes that the virus could be connected to Jenova somehow. There were traces of Jenova cells found within the parasite, too. Of course, it's hard to say whether or not those were just the cells that Cloud originally contained from Hojo's experimentation, or actually belonging to the virus." Vincent eyed the whiskey bottle and picked it up, gently swirling the alcohol around before taking a swig.
"A virus with the power to possess those it inhabits..." Tifa murmured with a shiver before she slowly stood up. "Let me grab my glove, and then we'll get out of here." She paused, stealing a glance at the corpse on the ground. "What should we do with him, though?"
"Leave it. Let the police deal with the body. We should be out of here long before they discover it, anyway."
"But it seems so...inhumane to just leave it there," Tifa replied with a shudder. It truly had been a long time since she had lived in the Midgar slums.
Vincent was almost out of the room before he stopped and threw a glance over his shoulder. "Trust me. That boy was inhumane when he was killed."
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Author's Note – I know, I know...that was terribly short. But I'm going out of town for the week, so I won't be able to update regularly like I did with the first two chapters. I won't be near a computer. ; So I wanted to let my readers know where I was going to be, and just give you all this little hint of what else there is to come. Expect a new update on Friday, though!