Chapter 6

Attacks of Suspicion

—

Tifa half ran, half stumbled down the mountain trail in desperate search of the cloaked man. The wind had started to pick up and her hair blew wildly around her face. She nearly collided into a boulder as she ran into a fork in the road– the right path led down the road to her house, and the left ended at the port.

Tifa paused for a moment and decided that the man would probably be leaving by sea, as there weren't many air ships in the sky since the fall of Shinra. She hurried down the left path.

—

Cloud smacked his hand to his forehead in frustration.

Idiot, idiot, idiot, he thought to himself angrily as he strode quickly down the mountain path.

His other hand reached up to pull the stifling black hood off of his head as he took a left fork in the path.

Dammit! He mentally screamed at himself as he dragged a black-gloved hand through his disheveled hair. What the hell was I thinking? I had every opportunity to... and I'm sure that she even knew... I'm such a fucking coward!!

He took a vicious swipe with his foot at an un-offending rock lying on the path.

"Urrgg!!!"

Cloud stopped suddenly and leaned against the rocky wall next to him, his forearm pressed against the wall to cushion his aching head.The headaches were getting worse.

"Tifa..." Cloud murmured, sliding slowly down the wall, sitting on his feet in a crouch. He rubbed his temples slowly, trying to think. He had to go back to the shipfor his medication.

And hope that son of a bitch hasn't beaten me to it, he finished, bitterly.

He sighed and pressed his back to the wall, letting himself sit on the ground. What the hell was he doing? he wondered.

I'm here for Tifa, he reminded himself patiently. To take her away from here and be with her forever, away from... them

Cloud gasped and squeezed his eyes shut as another tremor racked his brain. This time he was left gasping for breath.

It's getting worse, he thought. I need to find her, before the other does.

---

Tifa began running down the left path, her mind running wild with thoughts of questions to ask the man.

Did Cloud tell you anything about where he was going? Did he say what he was going to do? Will you help me find him?

Tifa was just rounding a corner when she skidded to such a sudden halt that she slipped on the rocky path and fell sliding in the gravel. Her legs were scratched and bleeding, but the pain didn't quite register as loudly in her mind as the image before her. She was staring, open-mouthed, at the ledge some fifty yards in front of her.

A massive, black-scaled dragon was perchedon the cliff– its thick, leathery wings unfurled as it saw her. It screeched a high-pitched cry accompanied by flames as its reptilian eyes narrowed, watching her.

Tifa, half-lying on the ground, gaped at its flaring nostrils. She clutched at the gravel beneath her gloves and screamed.

---

Cloud's head snapped up the instant he heard it– the monster's screech, followed by her scream.

Tifa! he thought wildly.

He was sprinting toward the sounds before he even remembered deciding to move, and saw the dragon before he even thought about his lack of a weapon. The Ultima Weapon was too large and identifying for his mission to visit Tifa, so he had only the materia in his armband for the battle.

His eyes quickly looked beyond the monster, searching for Tifa. He saw her, scrambling to stand on the other side of the dragon.

If the dragon knew that Cloud was there, it seem unconcerned. Tifa had managed to get to her feet, although Cloud could see that she was slightly injured and shaking on what looked like a twisted ankle. She took up her familiar fighting stance, the one he'd stood next to countless times during the war when they'd fought side by side– her fists were poised in guard, ready to attack.

The dragon was also preparing to launch. Its talons scraped the ground irritably, as though this was all an annoying necessity that was taking up its time. It crouched, like a cat the length and breadth of a fire truck. Its muscles were writhing beneath black scales as it prepared to pounce on Tifa.

"ICE THR-" Tifa began to yell, but the sound of anotherdeeper and more commanding voice bellowed from behind the dragon, interrupting her.

"ULTIMA!!"

The dragon screeched in pain as it was engulfed in swirling, piercing green winds and blinding flashes of white light. Through the deafening roar of the rushing green wind, Tifa could hear a familiar, deep and throaty male voice. It was laughing.

Bastard, Cloud mentally cursed.

When the dust cleared, the dragon had disappeared. Cloud wasted no time in running to Tifa. She was still staring at the spot where the dragon had been, and only first saw Cloud when he grabbed one of her elbows to keep her steady as she wavered on her feet.

"Tifa, are you alright?" Cloud asked anxiously, his other hand reaching to sweep away the hair that had fallen over her eyes. She stared up at him, mouth quivering slightly.

"C, Cloud!" she cried, and threw her arms around him.

Cloud wrapped his arms around her back and closed his eyes, sighing deeply. She was sobbing loudly against his chest.

"G, gone for two years- I was so w, worried!! H, hadn't heard anything aboutyou f, for so long, oh Cloud, I was so st-stupid for letting you go by yourself!!"

Cloud pulled away slightly and tried to smile reassuringly as he held her tear-streaked face between his hands. He tilted her chin up a bit with his right hand and started wiping the tears from her face with his left.

"Tifa," he began, his voice still gruff with the strain of holding back his own tears. "You are definitely not the stupid one. I'm the idiot who ran off alone and stayed away all this time..."

Tifa swallowed hard and narrowed her eyes at him.

"Why did you stay away? Where did you go? And," Tifa continued, a look of realization and outrage beginning to dawn on her face, "why the hell didn't you tell me you were the man in black?!"

Cloud couldn't resist a huge grin at the look on her face, and he started laughing when Tifa saw his amusement and punched him lightly on the shoulder.

"I, I didn't know how to... just show up," he said, rubbing the back of his neck. It was a habit Tifa had noticed since they were children that he often displayed out of embarrassment.

"Well as simple 'Hello,' would have done it, I think," Tifa said wisely, but not without a small smile twitching at the corners of her mouth.

"I didn't know what to think," she continued. "I thought that it might be another one of Hojo's minions..."

Tifa stopped in mid sentence, instantly regretting what she had just said. Cloud had been a prisoner of Hojo's for many years and didn't like to be reminded that he had once been considered one of those minions.

Cloud looked away for a moment before looking back, directly into Tifa's eyes. He didn't want to tell her the truth– why he was really dressed like that and where he had really been for the past two years. Tifa gasped a bit to see the fierce determination that burned there, but as quickly as it appeared, it disappeared, leaving a look of such abject sorrow that Tifa nearly began to cry again.

Before she could apologize to him, Cloud drew in a breath as though he were about to say something, but held it in and pressed his lips together, shaking his head.

"Considering the fact that you were just attacked by a dragon," Cloud said a moment later as he fished in his pocket for a handkerchief and ignored the skeptical look that Tifa was giving him for changing the subject. "I don't think that right here and now are either the right time or place to talk about this."

The pain in Tifa's ankle seemed to agree with Cloud as she noticed its throbbing insistence right after he spoke, as if on cue. She sniffed a little and smiled, grabbing the handkerchief that Cloud had produced from his pocket and blew her nose on it, as if taunting him to try and touch her face again with it. Cloud just smiled at her and wrapped one arm around her back, providing himself as a crutch for her injured leg.

They had hobbled together the rest of the way down the hill and were entering the harbor before Tifa realized where they were. She stopped and looked up at Cloud, who had stopped with her but was looking at a ship docked nearby.

"What are we doing here, Cloud?" she asked. "We should go back to my house on the other side of the mountain so I can wrap my ankle..."

Cloud was silent for a moment, his gaze narrowing and his mouth turning into a grim line. He looked back at her with his serious, "Determined-Mr-Leader" look again.

"No, my ship was closer, and now we're here. I can take care of your injuries in there."

He nodded toward the lone ship in the port, a very large, slightly rusted commercial fishing vessel that appeared to be completely desolate of life. Tifa only had a moment to wonder where the rest of the crew was before Cloud started walking again, taking her with him.