Chapter 3 "Bidding Farewell to Furusato" (furusato-homeland)

Vincent stepped in Lucrecia's cave one last time. He looked over to where he last saw her. He lowered his head and closed his eyes.

"It is time to leave the past... and look into the future. Farewell Lucrecia... the one I loved." He turned on his heel and walked away.

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Yuffie enters the pagoda.

"Father?" "Hey Yuf! You're back! Have you seen the sky?? It looks funny."

Gorki came behind her. Yuffie turned around. "Gorki!"

Out popped Shake, Chekhov and Staniv.

"Shake, Chekhov, Staniv..." Yuffie said, "Where is father?"

"Hm? Yuffie, is that you?" Godo asked, coming out of a room across.

"Have you been training hard while you were gone?"

"Oh yes father!" Yuffie stated with a jump, "I'm the best ninja of all time! I stopped it from being the end of the world with the help of my friends."

Godo nodded his head, "Well, what do you say we have another series of trials. This time, I doubled it, there are 10."

This caught Yuffie off guard, "Oh uhm.. Well, I don't think I'll be able to do that, father. I have another adventure to get to and it's up there in the sky!" she said, pointing up.

"There's a world that's covered over us. And I can't leave my friends. Besides," she said, nudging her toe across the wooden floor, "A new place means new skills, new techniques... And NEW MATERIA!!"

"That's the reason why I came here," Yuffie continued, this time with a solemn face, looking down at the floor, "To y'know. Say goodbye and stuff. I don't know if I'm capable of returning."

A moment later, Godo burst into tears. "Go if you must, my daughter. I'm sure you will truly be the greatest ninja of all time!"

Yuffie let out a sniff. "Thanks, father."

"Here," Godo said, taking something out of his treasure chest, "This is the Five Mighty Gods' materia summon. Very valuable. Keep it safe, this is what I want you to remember us by."

The summon materia was marbled green, yellow, purple, black, orange and red. Yuffie had a look of amazement on her face.

"Gee, this is awesome! I don't know what to say...." She rubbed the back of her head, lost for words. She then found them and looked at Mr. Kisaragi, "Thanks, dad."

With that, she bowed to him and headed for the door. She stopped and took one last look at her father and Gorki, Shake, Chekhov, and Staniv.

"Don't forget about me, Yuffie Kisaragi, the greatest ninja in the whole entire universe!!!" she exclaimed and with that, she ran out the door.

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Cid took in a deep breath, his hands on both sides like he owned the place (which he, in fact, did).

"Damn, I'll miss this place."

"Cid?" Shera came up to him.

"Shera!" Cid directed, " Keep this place up as long as you can. I appoint you captain. I'm leavin', probably for good."

Shera was a bit surprised.

"What? Why? But Captain, we need you here."

Cid turned to look at her, "Dammit woman! There's no space to fly up to. There's another world over us. I'm gonna do some explorin' beyond that shitty coloured sky!"

Shera bowed her head and sighed. "Yes, Captain."

"And stop callin' me that, you dummy. You're the Captain around here now. Do whatever you like. Build another airship, a better submarine. I don't really care. It's up to you to decide."

Shera nodded and said, "Thank you."

"Yeah yeah," Cid waved a hand. He went up to the rocket that was in construction. He patted it,

"I'm gonna miss you."

He then headed for the exit when Shera interrupted,

"Cid...?"

He turned around, "What?"

She bowed her head, "You're a great captain. We will dedicate our ambitions and dreams to you. You will never be forgotten."

For once, Cid was touched. "Thanks Shera. Take care of this place." And with that said, he left.

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Tifa felt a chilly breeze run through her hair. She sat on the well and looked up at the swirly sky, hypnotized. Cloud arrived.

"You came," Tifa said.

Cloud nodded, "Yeah."

He walked up to the well and sat on it beside her.

"She hasn't returned to the planet. I know she's on the other side..." he begun.

Tifa remained silent, and slowly closed her eyes. Then after awhile, she spoke,

"Is that why you wanted to explore the world above us?"

"Yeah. But I also wanted to see what kind it was too," Cloud answered.

He looked at her, "How about you? Why did you wanted to go?"

Tifa's eyes opened but they looked down on the ground. "I'll go wherever you go. Just being by your side is enough for me."

"Tifa..." Her eyes looked off into the distance.

"We might be spending our last time in our hometown, Cloud," she said to him.

"Yeah," he answered, "Despite all the bad memories we had here, I'm gonna miss this place."

Tifa looked at him. "We still have the good ones to hold on to," she said, looking deep into his ocean blue eyes.

She then looked off back into the distance ahead and timidly asked,

"Do you remember the very first time we met?"

Cloud put one hand around his waist and the other holding his chin, in deep thought. There was a flashback showing Nibelheim bathing under the warm, spring sun.

"Now that you mention it... I do."

There was a little blonde-haired boy at the age of 6, who was being picked on by three other boys. Cloud was pushed down to the ground by one of them and the boys walked away laughing at him.

"Spiky headed freak."

A young Tifa, with her hair in pigtails decorated with purple ribbons wearing a purple dress and shoes, came over to Cloud.

"Hi. Are you okay?" She bent down to see.

"I'm fine," Cloud mumbled, and dusted himself off and stood back up.

"Those boys are mean. My dad will tell them off if they bug you again," she told him.

"Here..." she reached out to give him a forget-me-not flower.

"For you. It's a flower. Forget-me-not. Pretty, isn't it?"

He took it and looked at it, "I guess."

Tifa smiled at him. "What's your name?"

"Cloud."

"I'm Tifa. You live right next door to me, right?" Cloud nodded.

"Tomorrow, let's go play at the well, okay Cloud?" her head inched closer to see his face.

Cloud was taken aback. He was never asked by any kid to come play with them. He was always picked on by the others because of his name and his hair. But he agreed.

"Okay," he said with a nod. Tifa nodded back, her smile did not fade.

"That's good. I'll see you then!" she went back into her house.

Cloud watched her go and when she closed the door, he looked down at the blue flower he was holding.

(The scene fades) Cloud's head, which was looking up as it usually does when he is reminiscing a memory, looked down to catch Tifa's garnet eyes. They closed and there was another flashback.

A butterfly passed by the town. Two kids were playing at the well. Tifa laughed as Cloud was chasing after her, round and round the well. Cloud was surprised to see how fast she was. He then stopped. So did Tifa, who was on the other side. He began to run. So did Tifa. He stopped. She did too. He started off again. So did Tifa. This time, Cloud switched ways and bumped into her and both fell on their bottoms. They shooked their head and got up.

Tifa giggled. "That was fun."

She climbed up to the top of the well, Cloud followed after standing there watching her. She sat down. Clood stood there, hesitantly.

Tifa smiled at him, "Come... Sit down beside me." He did.

They both looked up at the blue sky.

"This morning," she started, "I saw a cloud outside my window..."

She looked at him, "and it reminded me of you."

A tinge of redness welled up in Cloud's cheeks. He then wondered why she was so interested in him. The other kids thought he was weak and dumb. She didn't seem to think so at all. ...Why? Cloud lifted his legs up and down, then had the courage to ask.

"How come you wanted to play with me?" his head turned to look at her.

Tifa bowed her head and looked at her dangling legs. "...Because....."

The memory flashed and faded.

"I forgot what you had told me," Cloud said to Tifa. Tifa gave a weak smile.

"It will come to you later on. I'm surprised you actually remembered all this."

"Yeah. It's good to know that the good memories are coming back to me."

There was a moment of silence and just when Cloud seemed to have realized that Tifa didn't seem to want to tell him what she told him back then and decided to ask her, Tifa jumped off the well and did not turn to look at him.

"...It's time to go." Cloud nodded and jumped off. With one last look at their town, they left.

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"Dammit!"

Barret slammed his fist on the table at the Cosmo Canyon pub, startling everyone as the cups shot up into the air and back down.

"Calm yourself, Barret. You've made the right decision not to go. Marlene needs you here with her," Reeves assured him, who was working on Cait Sith to see if any repairing should be done.

"Yer right. But I can't help it." He turned around in his stool to face Reeves, with his fists under the sides of his jaw, shaking with frustration.

"I really wanna know what's the deal with this new world firs'hand."

He stopped his shaking, put his hands down to his sides and shook his head,

"I'm not the one ter sit back and let others do all the dirty work, waitin' fer them ter come back! That Bugen wannabe said it's possible that they won't. So I could be waitin' forever for them!"

Reeves stopped observing his robot, let out a sigh and turned to face the gun-armed man.

"You still have the night, if you can call it one, to change your mind. If you plan to go, I promise you that I'll take good care of Marlene until you return - that is if you can.

But," Reeves continued, "It's better to stay with her. A safer choice, too. There might be a way to return back here. We just need to find that out. When we do, you'll get to finally check out the outerworld and return to Marlene and tell her your experience."

Barret wrapped his arms around him, his hands on opposite shoulders, thinking. He looked up at Reeves.

"Yeh got a good point there."

He got up from his stool, "Thanx man."

"No problem," Reeves said, who resumed back to working on Cait Sith.

Barret took one last drink from his mug, set it down and said, "I'm gunna go catch some Z's."

"Good night then."

"Yeah," Barret grumbled and left.

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I wrote like..10 chapters for this story of mine... but the only way I'm gonna put all of them up is when I see at least one person begging me to update it XD