Disclaimer: Final Fantasy 7 and all that's associated with it are not mine but Squaresoft's.

Hi! You may be wondering why this is still chapter 3... but actually this is a NEW chapter. Please read my note in the end of the former chapter 1 (which is now the prologue) for more information. Sorry for the inconvenience. And thanks for stopping by...

CHAPTER 3

Blood Red

"Hey Rios! Wake up!" a hushed voice of a young girl called out. "Wake up before he sees you!"

Rios' head suddenly shot up from his arms, breathing heavily, making enough movement to make his teacher notice him from the front of the classroom.

"Ah... Nice of you join us, Mr. Lockheart," Reeve said smiling at him sardonically, "if you may, solve this problem on the board." All heads in the classroom turned to him, except for the girl beside him who has her face covered by her puny little hands.

Reeve stretched his arm in Rios' direction with a piece of chalk in hand, urging the boy to get up from his chair and go to him.

Great. Just great. Rios thought to himself as he got up and walked towards his teacher. He ignored everyone's stares as he always did every time he gets caught sleeping in class and gets called to answer some darn problem on the board.

"Go Strife, I mean Lockheart." an evil-looking boy sneered at him. Rios ignored him as well.

He grabbed the chalk from Reeve's outstretched hand and walked over to the board. He stared at it for about three seconds, smiled evilly, and then started writing something. After he was done, every jaw in class dropped and every eye bulged at what he wrote. He grinned and handed Reeve back the chalk. He returned to his seat and sat down; a very satisfied look adorned his young face.

The only persons not surprised at what the boy of five did were his friends Alaina who was seated beside him, Mallori who was snoring like a pig beside Alaina, and Reeve himself. After checking Rios' answer on the board, Reeve turned to Rios and smiled approvingly.

"Excellent, Mr. Lockheart," he said.

A few seconds after which, the bell rang. "Recess!" Mallori, like a chubby little kid he was, woke up and announced as he jumped from his chair. He ran towards the door as all the other kids did. Alaina looked at Rios and sensing the boy has something on his mind, she said, "Catch up with us, okay, Rios?" When Rios nodded, she followed the others out.

Reeve erased the writings on the board. When he was finished, he turned and found a pair of big blood red eyes looking up at him.

"What can I do for you, Mr. Lockheart?" he asked the blonde boy.

"What was that for, Mr. Reeve?" Rios replied. "I know that problem you asked me to answer was not part of our lesson. Our lesson's about addition and you gave me a complex organochemistry problem. Why?"

"I just figured out that you'd be bored with addition, since you were soundly sleeping in your chair so I gave you something that you can relate to. And I must admit, you're getting better everyday, especially for a kid your age," Reeve said smiling.

Rios glared up at him, "I looked like a freak! No other five-year-old understood what I just wrote on the board!"

"Would you rather I let you answer some boring math equation?"

A pause.

"No," Rios answered, another pause and then, "but don't do that again." With that, he left the room.

And all the while, Reeve was smiling.

--- --- --- --- ---

"Hey Rios! Where are you going?" Alaina called out.

Rios ignored her as he grabbed his stuff from the bag rack and walked towards the door of the school house.

"Hey!" Alaina called out again.

"Yeah Strife, I mean Lockheart. Where are you going?" the evil-looking boy asked him with a sneer on his face. Rios ignored him again.

"Shut up, Will," Alaina said. "Come on, Mal, let's go!"

"Huh?" Mallori looked up from his food and stared at Alaina. "Oh okay. Coming!" He walked right passed Will and both he and Alaina grabbed their stuff. They followed Rios out the door.

At some distance from the school house, they caught up with Rios.

"Hey Rios! What's up? Where are we going?" Alaina asked when she was walking right beside her friend.

"What? What do you mean 'we'?" Rios turned to her, still walking. "You two should go back. I have something important to do."

"Important?" Then Alaina paused to ponder on that, "Oh, you mean dangerous, huh? That's okay! I brought my daggers with me. So 'dangerous' wouldn't be a problem!"

"Yeah... And I brought my uh... hammer," Mallori added.

Rios stopped, so did the others. "Look, guys. I really have something to do and yes, it's going to be dangerous. Actually, I don't know yet where exactly I'm going. I just felt something funny a while ago, so I'm going to check it out."

"Really? Wow! Adventure! We'll go with you!" Alaina announced. "Besides, a walk on the mountains would be boring if you're alone!"

"Mountains? How'd you know I was headed for the mountains?" Rios asked.

"'Coz this trail we're following is headed to the mountains, you dope," Alaina grinned then started walking. Mallori followed her, leaving Rios behind.

Oh... Why didn't I think of that? Rios thought. He then followed them.

After a while of silently walking, the group finally reached the bridge.

"So Rios... What's on the mountains?" Alaina asked.

"I dunno. Something. But I can't figure out what," Rios replied.

"Uh-huh. You were moaning something a while ago," Alaina said and when Rios looked at her in a funny way, she continued, "A while ago. Before you woke up and answered Mr. Reeve's problem. You were moaning something. Something like 'nooo!!' and 'look ooouuut!" as she was trying to enact what Rios was doing in his sleep earlier. Rios grinned at her because she looked silly.

"Really, Rios. You were, so stop laughing at me!" Alaina turned a bright red.

"Hey, Lain's blushing!" Mallori announced and laughed at her. After a while, all three of them were laughing.

--- --- --- --- ---

"Rufus!!!" Reno shouted in his ear, which made Rufus twitch and punch Reno right in the jaw and sent him flying.

"Ouch! What d'ya do that for?" Reno exclaimed, after gaining consciousness at what just happened and rubbing his jaw, "whoa, I think my mandibles are broken. In addition to the many things that I broke when we crashed."

"Why'd you shout in my ear, you dimwit! I'm not deaf!" Rufus said, trying his best to sit up among the rubble Reno must have pulled him from.

"I know. You're only a little bit unconscious a while ago," Reno replied sarcastically. Rufus glared at him, so he gave a silly apologizing look. He then began to brush the dirt and grime from his suit, but to no avail. Great. I'm going to pay loads to get this cleaned!

Rufus continued to pull himself to a sitting position until pain shot up from his limbs and torso that made him shout.

"Hey, easy there, Prez," Reno immediately went to him to assist him.

"Leave me be," Rufus ordered. Reno let go of him and when blood started to spurt from his open abdomen, he panicked.

"Geez, Prez! You're bleeding!" Reno pulled out his blazer and started wrapping Rufus torso with it, while Rufus was groaning from the pain of it. There goes loads of paying to do. Then Reno helped him up. He threw Rufus' left arm over his own and noticed that every inch of the front of Rufus' white blazer was soaked with blood. Funny, he didn't notice them before. He must've mistaken them for dirt, since dirt seemed to cover them everywhere.

While Reno was pondering over why he didn't notice Rufus' bloody situation before, Rufus was doing his best not to faint with all the blood he had lost and the pain that was running all over his battered body.

Huh, reminds me of the old days, Rufus mused thinking of that time when he was brought to Mideel barely alive.

"Come on, Prez. We'd better get you to town immediately. You can't hold out much longer," Reno said gritting his teeth since Rufus was heavier than he thought.

--- --- --- --- ---

"Are we there yet?" Mallori asked for almost the hundredth time.

"No," Alaina replied for almost the hundredth time as well.

"Hey guys, I think we'd better rest up here before we go any further," Rios said referring to the clearing the group reached so far.

"Finally!" Mallori said happily as he set down his bag and took something out from it.

"If you're so hungry, why didn't you eat along the way?" Alaina asked him, but Mallori just ignored her and continued chomping on his sandwich happily. "Rios?"

Rios was staring out on the mountains, as if searching for something that would catch his attention, something that would tell him that his vision earlier had not been only a dream. Rios looked at the heavily clouded sky. It was almost noon, but the Nibelheim mountains looked darker than usual. He knew because his friends and he usually go up here on weekends to hunt some monsters for money.

"Hey guys, come on. We gotta go." Rios said a few moments later.

"What? But I sat here for less than five minutes!" Mallori complained.

"We better go now or else, we may end up going home later than the usual going-home-from-school-time and our parents may wonder where we go all the time, and they would find out that we go up here, then we'll get busted and then..."

"Alright, alright. I'm up. Let's go," Mallori said after Rios' rather confusing but well, convincing statement.

They were walking silently along the way, until Rios noticed something strange in the distance. A slight frown appeared on his face as he made out something of a plane, or rather the remains of it, on the side of a mountain. It was way too far away, but then again, Rios had visual abilities far better than ordinary people.

"I see something," he said.

"What? What?!" Alaina asked excitedly.

"I'm not sure, but it seems that an airplane crashed somewhere over there. I can see parts of it and they're still... uh... fresh." Rios added.

"Whoa... you can see that?" Mallori asked him, his eyes wide. Rios only shrugged and motioned for them to go on.

--- --- --- --- ---

"Urgh!" Reno groaned dragging Rufus along with him. It seemed as if Rufus had fainted. He hadn't helped in dragging his own body.

Okay, you can do it. Reno told himself as he gave another pull, but unfortunately he tripped and let go of Rufus. Both of them landed with a loud thump on the ground sending dirt to fly over them. Reno was breathing heavily, while Rufus raised his head scanning the area as if sensing something amiss.

"Sorry about that, boss. You're heavier than I thought," Reno said, still breathing heavily. He stood up and motioned to help Rufus up.

"Come on now," he said, groaning as he placed Rufus' weight on him again, and making such a fuss of it to earn a "Sshh!" from Rufus.

"What?" Reno asked in a hushed voice.

"Ssshh. I think I heard something," Rufus said.

"...... a monster?"

"I don't know. Just be quiet. And stop that wussy sound. It's driving me nuts."

After a moment of silence between them, pain shot up once again onto Rufus' torso making him grunt. His vision blurred because of the pain. And then he saw something. Something yellow. Familiar... He squinted his eyes to clear up his vision, but darkness took over him. The pain was excruciating, but before he finally gave up to the it, he took one last look and uttered one single word that shook his whole person.

"Strife..."

"What?" Reno asked him, and seeing his boss had fainted, Reno looked at the last thing Rufus saw before he did.

"What the..."Reno said in a bare whisper. He was stunned. He was seeing Cloud Strife walking towards them.

--- --- --- --- ---

Tifa was mixing drinks for a young couple who wanted the special "Drink of the Day" that really was only lemonade mixed with water, strawberry ice cream, and prunes – no alcohol. She thought that it was too early for them to get drunk, or for anyone to get drunk for that matter..

"Here you go," she said happily while handing the giggling couple their drinks.

Okay... they're going to feel as if they're getting drunk by the looks of things. Kids, Tifa thought grinning. She looked at them and felt sadness. Her eyes told it all. But she shook her head and brushed the feeling aside. She was not going through that again.

"Uh... Teef!" a worried voice came up at some distance beside her. She turned to it. It was Yuffie. And a very silly-looking Yuffie. She just came through the door from the store room. On her arms were several beer mugs stacked atop each other and she was somewhat dancing to keep her balance and the mugs from falling. "Where do these go?!"

Tifa hurriedly helped her with them and placed them under the counter. After the last had been taken care of, Yuffie gave her a shy smile. "Sorry about that. I should've carried them one by one, but then again... they were too darn MANY!" With that, she quickly returned from where she came from. About a minute or so, Tifa heard a loud crash inside the store room.

"Hey Leon!" she called out to an olive-brown-haired young man of fifteen who was cleaning up tables near the door. "Could you please take in charge here? I'm going to check out what that crash was." When Leon nodded, Tifa went directly through the door to the store room.

"Yuffie! What happened?" She exclaimed. Yuffie had been trying to carry loads of beer mugs again, but unfortunately, she let go of them and each and every one of them ended broken shards on the floor. She was now staring wide eyed at something. Tifa followed her line of vision and found three pairs of wide eyes looking up at her. The first pair was blue, the next were brown, and the third one was red.

"Mallori, Alaina, Rios!" Tifa shrieked, although calmer than it sounds. "What are you guys doing here?! Why aren't you at school?" Then she turned to Yuffie. "And why were you so surprised? It was only them."

Yuffie's lips began to tremble as if beginning to cry, then pointed at the three kids. "There's something there," she said in a whisper.

"What?" Tifa turned to the three kids. She found them smiling at her, teeth and all. Their hands were tied behind their backs and they were standing so close to each other that made Tifa think that they were hiding something behind them.

"Okay, guys. What are you up to?" Tifa asked in an authorative way. Mallori, Alaina, and Rios kept smiling at her.

"Wit di wi di niw?" Mallori asked Alaina through clenched teeth since he was still showing them off to Tifa.

"I din't niw. Jist bi quiit," Alaina replied.

Tifa was frowning now, her arms crossed just below her bosom, and her right heel was thumping the ground.

After a while, Rios finally gave in. His cheek muscles hurt.

"Alright, alright," Rios began, "Mom, I want your word not to rant and rave when I show you this."

Tifa continued to frown at him, not saying a thing.

"Shi's nit lis'ning..." Alaina said.

"Mom!"

"Okay! Rios, what have you gotten yourse..." Tifa was cut off short when Mallori, Alaina, and Rios suddenly stepped aside revealing two very familiar people behind them. The other was grinning stupidly at her, while the other one was unconscious... and bleeding!!!

Tifa was left tongue-tied to say anything.

"Heyyah Lockheart," the first one said, "Long time, no see, eh?"

- End of Chapter -

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A/N

I finished another chapter! And if you noticed, I made things a bit fast. I realized I was really going slow... So tah dah! Tifa meets Reno and sleeping Rufus!

Thanks to those who reviewed and also those who didn't but read the story! Hope you'll drop something next time, but no flames please! Fanfiction is a site for showing your creative ideas through writing and not getting flamed for it! :)

Please click that cute little button on the lower left side of the screen if you don't mind and tell me what you think!

I'll be making another fic soon I guess since I finished 1/10 of my sampling for my thesis. I think it will be VinxTif, but I'm not sure... RufxTif anyone? Or something else? No Aeris please 'coz we're not exactly friends... Sorry! (Why does her name change, anyway? It was Aeris in FF7 and Aerith in Kingdom Hearts... and Aerith in Advent Children... Why?!)

Take care! :)

Valen Locke