She stood there, wine eyes glazing over as they watched the setting sun. The sun would set on another simple day for the rest of the world. For Tifa, it would set on her life. She watched the rocks below her, the sky's reflection staining them a burning orange. Soon they would be stained with a very different colour. A gentle breeze flowed in from the east, and she let it free her sorrows, release her anguish. She closed her eyes, and the air flowed through her clothes, so she could feel it all over her. She felt tiny locks of hair flicker over her face, messing up her ponytail. She didn't bother to wipe them away. She opened her eyes again and bent down to undo her laces. She removed both her boots, and then her socks. Discarding them on the ground and forgetting them, she brought her hair around her shoulders and slowly pulled out the hair tie, letting it fall beside her shoes. She then took off her braces, and last of all, the combat gloves that marked her as a warrior.

She turned back towards the cliff edge. Now she could feel the soothing grass beneath her feet, cooling her toes, and her hair was flying free in the wind. She was left wearing only her miniskirt and tank top. A small smile of recognised irony crossed her lips.

It's funny, after everything that's happened, that I should end up this way. I've fallen from a bridge at the age of ten and been wounded by the Masamune when I was fifteen. I've fought against monsters a thousand times, killing everything from gremlins to weapons. I've been suffocated in a gas chamber, drowned in the lifestream, and battled the very angel of death, Sephiroth. I've lived through all of this, and come out with all limbs still attached, and no permanent physical damage. In the end, a broken heart will kill me.

Her gaze lifted to the sky, her eyes no longer despairing, but reflecting the same essence they had wielded on that starry night in Nibelheim. They were the beautiful, sad eyes of a desperate dreamer. She threw back her head and called to the heavens,
"Aeris! Will I see you there? Or will you return to us? Cloud will bring you back. He loves you, you know." She then levelled twin lagoons of deep garnet towards the horizon, the ocean stretching out forever before her. Her toes crept slowly further forwards, until she could curl them over the crumbling dirt edges. "It looks as though fate has granted me the wings to fall. I will not die a beautiful death like you did. My death will be a mortal one. I lived as a mortal, and I will die with the sins and plagues of one. Unlike you Aeris, I will bleed."

She blinked slowly, and as she opened her eyes, her vision blurred from the water in them. A single tear fell to her cheek. Salt. Salt over the skin. Salt the portrait of bitterness and pain. When she fell, her body would be crushed. Oh, how she would bleed. The maps of her body would lie unrecognisable upon the great sea-washed rocks below her. Then the tide would return, and she would be swept away in the salt. It was perfect.

She inhaled deeply, savouring the breath, knowing it was one of the last she would ever draw. Finding a new respect for the simple freedom of being able to let air flow through her body and give her life, she finally focused on the one person she wanted to think about last of all.
Cloud. She knew she could never live with seeing him love another, but Aeris was her best friend, and she loved Cloud too much to impose on his happiness. Even if it destroyed her own. If Aeris was to be blessed so beautifully with a second chance at life, Tifa would not even consider resenting her for it. But she knew that Aeris would come back for Cloud. She was jealous, but granted, that was to be expected. The emotion that filled her was neither hatred nor anger towards Aeris, but the overwhelming despair of what had to happen. She had known that she would cry for Cloud, her one true love, when the time came to do this. The salt water tainted her cheeks as her tears fell in the same two rivers down her face over and over again, falling in all her sweet misery.
Alright, Cloud. I need to be strong for you…one last time.

She held out her arms to embrace the sky, and prepared to fall.

Suddenly a voice jerked her out of her trance.
"TIFA!!!!!" she spun around and cried aloud. There he was, maybe thirty meters away from her. He was gasping for breath, his knees were grazed, his hair matted, and his trembling body slick with sweat. To Tifa, he was the most beautiful thing she would ever see.
"Cloud..." she choked, crying for him like she had never cried in her whole life. She wanted so much to run into his arms, feel him embracing her, protecting her, telling her everything was alright. Drowning her fears and loneliness and pain in his love. But she knew that this could never be. She knew that she would never really touch his heart. The emotions swelled up in her, and she knew what she had to do. He began to run to her, desperate to stop her, but she couldn't let him reach her. She smiled at him. A whisper of a smile, finally revealing the one thing she had never said. "I love you...Cloud" Her voice only loud enough for him to hear her. Tears pouring down her face, her hand reached out to him, saying goodbye to the one person she wanted to touch so dearly, but would never quite reach.
Then she let herself fall.

Watching him until the last possible moment, she fell away from him, a backwards fall of trust. The air rushed up around her for the first few unbelievable seconds, and she thought she felt her tears rush up above her body before falling after her. Her hand was still streaming upwards in a hopeless gesture to touch him.
Elation. It feels as though I were flying. Like everything, even my body has left me. I wouldn't mind dying this way. I only wish...

Then she closed her eyes, and all she saw and heard was white noise. She had embraced herself for the end. Time stood still, and death was rising to meet her.