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Hey everyone, I have an important announcement/poll. One of my favorite anime's is a show called Zoids: Chaotic Century. Not to be confused with Zoids: Zero…which blows. I am thinking of doing a fic based off of the show, with a few twists to it. Namely: put all the characters in High School, and then throw in all the FF7 characters on top of that.
I'm still just thinking about it, but please let me know if you all would be interested in reading this type of fic. It will help me decide whether I'm willing to fork out the many hours of writing to do it.
Anyway, on to chap 20.
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There was Tifa, lying still on the ground, right where I had last seen Aerieth. Without any hesitation on my part, I ran to her. She was lying on her side. I turned her over to look at her face. "Tifa! Tifa, are you alright? Can you hear me?"
She opened her eyes.
It was then that I found out exactly what was wrong with her.
She looked at me, through glowing eyes. She opened her mouth to speak, but only a strange raspy sound came out. She then started tossing her head side to side, like a lunatic.
She had life-stream poisoning.
I picked her up. I'm not sure if it was the adrenaline or what, but she was incredibly light. I held her close and whispered words of comfort as I bounded up the slope, jumping from rock to rock as fast as my feet could carry me.
I reached the top, and emerged into the dank air. The whole gang was there, and they all looked worried.
"CLOUD!" Barrett yelled. "What took you so lo—" he then saw Tifa lying limp in my arms, still throwing her head side to side. "Oh no…" he said.
"What happened to her?" Yuffie asked. "Life stream poisoning." I said. "We have to get her to Mideel as soon as possible." "Yah," Cid said. "That's where they have the hospital for Life stream victims." Cid turned and dashed up the slope. I sat amazed. That was probably the first time I had ever heard him say any sentence without cursing.
"Why was she down there?" I asked the others with a hint of anger in my voice. Red XIII responded first saying, "She went down to check on you. You were gone a long time. It's probably been at least an hour down there, so we got worried." Red XIII sat down and coughed. I noticed his voice was shaky and a little raspy. "I wanted to go down and check on you, but Tifa insisted." Barrett said. "We told her that she had already been in the life stream for an hour and to go back in would be real dangerous. But she insisted." I looked at her. For a moment her eyes caught mine, and for just a second, she stopped tossing her head back and forth, but she soon went right back into her insanity.
"We have not time to waste guys. To Highwind…let's go." "Wait, Cloud," said Vincent. "Where is your sword?" I then noticed that my sword was not sheathed on my back as it usually was. I must have forgotten it in the depths of the life stream when I had become distracted because of Tifa's unconscious body. I looked back, with Tifa still in my arms. I saw several hundred feet below, a faint white light. That was the white materia. I knew that my sword was down there…but I made a conscious decision. "We don't have time. Every second Tifa drifts deeper and deeper into her insanity. If we wait too long she may become a vegetable." "Are you just going to leave it there?" said Yuffie. "Yes," I said, as I began to sprint up the hill.
We ran and jumped up the long and sometimes narrow path in front of us. For a long while we met little resistance. Then, about half way out of the dungeon, we met our first enemy. It was a pair of Master Tomberris. Two of them! I have never seen them before in pairs. The two of them saw me and then started waddling towards me, their lanterns held high in the air. "I'll take care of these #&$," said Barrett. "Go on, Cloud. Time is not on our side." He cocked his Pile Bunker, and then unleashed it at the pair of Tomberris. He hit one strait in the head, blowing its head off. The other he hit in the chest. This knocked the Tomberri to the ground, drenched in his own blood. Seeing that the situation was under control I sped ahead. As I rounded a turn I head two more tremendous booms, which meant that Barrett had dealt final blows to both of the Tomberri's.
As the rest of us sped ahead of Barrett, Vincent and Yuffie decided to take point. This proved invaluable, because we ran into several more small groups of enemies, and their combined speed, power, and long range weapons were a great asset in keeping up a good pace. Every once in a while I glanced at Tifa. I knew talking to her was pointless because there was no way that she could hear me, but I talked to her anyway. "I can't wait till you get better Tifa," I would say. "I have so much to tell you. It seems strange, though. After our last conversation, I was sure we wouldn't talk for a long time, because I was really pissed at you. I think you felt the same way towards me. But now that I think about it, why was I mad? I don't know why I was. You said nothing that wasn't true. Maybe I was just in an argumentative mood at the time…"
An hour passed before we reached the top. With one arm around her waist, I lifted myself up the ladder onto Highwind, which, thanks to Cid, was already prepped to take off. Yuffie followed me, and then Barrett carrying Red XIII. Vincent just flew up. I'm not sure, but I think I heard Barrett say something like, "Damn vampires…" as Vincent flew past him.
There were no real beds on Highwind. There was the Chocobo stable if you could get past the smell and the moldy hay, but Highwind was never designed to be a luxury ship, and Cid with all his remodeling and renovation, must have forgotten about the idea of personal bedrooms. Therefore, we had no place to lay Tifa. Red XIII suggested we could lay her on a table somewhere, since maybe a table would be softer then the metal grate over all of the flooring in Highwind. I declined. I was going to carry her. "But Mideel is at least 4 hours away, even on Highwind!" Yuffie said. "Oh well…" is all I said.
When everyone was aboard, safe and sound (minus Cait Sith) Cid hit the engines into overdrive and we sped off. Finally safe from the Final Dungeon, and having destroyed Jenova and purifying the white materia, everyone took a sigh of relief.
"So Cloud…ummm….where's Aerieth?" asked Cid.
I had totally forgotten about telling them. In fact, Aerieth had all but slipped my mind. I then told them in detail, everything that had happened, from the moment they had left me, until I had emerged with Tifa in my arms out of the Life stream. They cheered when I told them how I had managed to purify the white materia. They dropped their jaws in horror when instead of seeing Aerieth's face in the white materia, I saw Sephiroth's. They gasped and Yuffie threw up when I told them about my arm being all but cut off, and my stomach being pierced by Sephiroth's Masamune sword. They were fascinated when I told them about Aerieth's final limit, as I had conjectured it to be, and how it had healed me and filled me with power unimaginable, without the aid of any materia, because as Sephiroth had said, materia cannot exist in the dimension between the living world and the dead. They were thrilled when I told them about how I had destroyed Sephiroth's sword, and then in one mighty cut, split Sephiroth into two pieces. They were saddened and satisfied when I told them how Aerieth refused to come back into the living world, despite her inner desire to do so. And then they were finally drawn back into concern when I finished my story with Tifa lying on the ground, her eyes glowing, and her head swaying side to side.
When I finally finished about a half hour later, I noticed my arms were getting stiff and tired. I had carried Tifa for at least an hour and a half now, but I didn't want anyone else to have to carry her. In a way, I viewed this as the beginning of my penance for all the mean and heartless things I had put her through for the past few days. More then once Barrett offered to hold her for a while. Vincent offered once even, but I lied each time, telling them I was fine.
After the second hour my biceps really began to hurt. After the third they felt like they were on fire, and I tried shifting my body weight so that way my arms wouldn't need to work so hard. By the fourth hour my legs and arms were shaking, but I walked around so no one would notice. Finally, after five hours, the tiny war torn town of Mideel lay in front of us, neatly nestled in a vast forest. Cid found a clearing and landed Highwind with amazing skill. I didn't wait for the others to secure the ship. I ran down to the lower deck, threw over the ladder, and climbed down. It was dangerous. First off my arms felt like jelly, so supporting both Tifa's weight and my own was insanely hard. Secondly, it was a rope ladder, which means that they're hard to climb as it is. Thirdly, Highwind was not secure and was therefore still subject to the wind. Several times during my descent Highwind was knocked hard by a gust of wind. I almost dropped Tifa at one point, but by sheer will my arm stayed around her waist.
I jumped off the ladder and sprinted into town. The people within the city had obviously tried to rebuild since the disaster of Ultimate Weapon, but they had surprisingly little to show for their efforts. Very few of the buildings were rebuilt, and the ones that had been were the ones farthest from the Life stream crater in the middle of the city. As I got closer towards the hospital (and the Life stream crater) it became more apparent that the people in town had all but abandoned this area, which had me extremely worried. Would the hospital still be there? Would the doctors still be there? Would they be able to help Tifa now that it's been at least six hours since she was poisoned?
To my great relief, there was one building nearest the crater that had been completely rebuilt. It was the hospital. I kicked the door open because I was unable to knock. I heard a woman scream in fright and then rush to the door. It was one of the nurses. "How DARE you open a door like that! This is a hospital! We have patients in here!" She screamed. Suddenly she looked down at Tifa in my arms, which were shaking. This only made Tifa's spasmodic movements appear even more prominent, which I later realized was probably a blessing. The nurse's face instantly changed. She ushered me in (although she yelled at me again for my "rudeness and inconsideration of the other patients"), and pointed me to chair. I sat down, grateful for the chance to relax my arms, but that was quickly forgotten. It seemed to me that Tifa was getting worse. She was thrashing her head about harder now. Her raspy sounds were a little more pronounced. And she no longer paused momentarily when ever her eyes met mine.
The doctor came in quickly. "Hello," he said. He then paused. "Uh…excuse me for asking, but have we met before?" I set Tifa down in one of the chairs and stood up to shake his hand. "My name is Cloud Strife," I said. "I was a patient here a few months ago." "Oh yes, I remember you. You were the guy who fell into the Life stream about half a year ago. It really was amazing how you managed to survive that. Most people…" "I'm sorry," I interrupted. "But my friend here, (I motioned towards Tifa), was in some Life stream…she has Life stream poisoning." The doctor put on his glasses and then checked his pocket for something. "Oh my….I think I may have left my stethoscope in the back room. People say I'm a little absent minded. I don't know why they think that. I'm very focused whenever I have a patient in front of me. Especially during surgery. In fact, just the other day one of the nurses was administering—" "DOC!" I interrupted. "Oh…right." He disappeared for a moment behind a curtain, and then came back with his stethoscope and a small box. Tifa lay twitching on the chair. The doctor sat down and felt her pulse, checked her eyes, her ears, and a number of other things. He was still going through this seemingly pointless routine when all the others arrived. "Oh, hello," the doctor said. "Are you all here for her?" "Damn right we are," said Cid. The nurse suddenly turned towards Cid and gave him a look. I didn't see it, and nor did anyone else, but Cid later recalled it by saying simply, "It was the most %$# frightening look I've ever seen." Cid didn't curse again for a while. In fact, I don't think he talked for the rest of the day.
After a few minutes, the doctor finally stood up. "Well, you were right. She has Life stream poisoning. But as near as I can tell, she has a very bad case of it. Worse then yours, I think," he said, looking at me. "How can that be?" I said. "She was in it for at the most…two hours. When I had the poisoning I had been under for…" "A hell of a lot longer then that," Barrett said. Again the nurse suddenly appeared in the background. This time she glared at Barrett, and he, like Cid, suddenly grew very quiet.
"Well, if I remember right, your blood sample said that you had had some previous form of Life stream poisoning. So you were somewhat immune to it when you were poisoned again. You know, I wouldn't be surprised if you're completely immune now. I mean, have you seen your eyes lately? They're—" "DOC!" I interrupted again. "Uh…sorry. Well, this girl…what's her name again?" "Tifa," I said. "Tifa? Tifa Lockheart?" "Yes. She was the girl that stayed with me during my recovery period." "Ah yes, wonderful girl, just a wonderful girl. It's a pity though…" We were all silent. None of us wanted to know what he had to say next, and yet, we all needed to know. We almost seemed to lean towards him as he said, "I'm very sorry to say this, and perhaps I shouldn't because I'll need to run some tests, but based on what I've seen…I mean, maybe if you had gotten here a little sooner I could have done something before the Life stream settled in her brain, but at this point…I don't think she'll recover from the poisoning…"