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Heart Of Ice

Chapter Three

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Tifa suddenly opened her eyes as if she had just been shaken awake, although there was nothing to wake her except her own anxiety. She lay a hand over her beating heart and closed her eyes, trying to organize her racing thoughts.

Cloud was still missing. That meant she had to find him. Simple enough, but try to tell that to her prison wardens...

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Vincent held his breath for the hundredth time as Barret nearly gagged himself with a particularly loud snore, an immense shudder which shook and threatened to dislodge the large man from his perch atop the mounds of furniture blocking Tifa's bedroom doorway. After last night's near-escape, Barret had piled everything from chairs to toilet paper in front of Tifa's doorway to prevent another attempt. He lay now with one leg propped up on a stool and his head resting on a salt shaker, sawing away.

Wide open for a swift tummy-poke, Vincent thought with a quiet snicker. He surveyed the scene from his shadowy corner of the room, sipping his morning coffee and contemplating waking up the sleeping bear before him before it got bowled over by the tornado that was quickly gathering in strength behind him.

Sure enough, the door behind Barret shook violently, making the salt shaker slip out from underneath his head, which smacked the wooden table.

"RRRAAAAAHHHH!" Barret bellowed as he jumped up, shaking himself awake. Fully prepared for a steady stream of cuss words, Vincent braced himself with a slight wince. Amazingly, Barret turned to him with a grin.

"Well, do ya reckon it's about time we let out the search party?"

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An hour and a half later, Tifa dug her fingers into the frozen crust of the glacier. The snow was hard and packed from years of undisturbed accumulation, but last night's blizzard had dusted the mountain with loose snow that made for extremely slippery footing over the ancient ice.

Vincent took the point position with his agility and keen senses leading the way. His clawed arm served as well as any ice pick as he stabbed through the ice mercilessly, forging a path. Tifa followed not far behind, her mountaineering skills not betraying her. Barret lagged in the rear, his large, bulky feet ill-adapted to finding the small crevices in the ice.

"Damn, man," he panted. "Don't know why... damn mountain gotta be... so damn high..."

Tifa smiled to herself, relishing the fresh mountain air. It was actually a very beautiful day, the sun was shining and the sky was blue. She just knew that everything was going to be alright, that Cloud had just set up camp here waiting for the blizzard to subside and that once she reached that summit, she'd see his smiling face as if he had been waiting for her.

"Hey Tifa," he'd casually say. "What took you so long?"

"Yo Tifa? What's taking you so long?"

Tifa shook her head, disengaging herself from her daydreaming as Barret shouted right behind her. She heaved herself up onto the next ledge and extended a hand to help haul Barret up. Vincent was gazing upward at the summit, not 60 yards away.

Barret lay sprawled in the snow after he reached the ledge. Tifa stood up and walked over to Vincent.

"Well Vincent? Do you think he's up there?"

"...Yes, he definitely did come this way, but..."

"But? You don't think he's there anymore?"

"No... he could still be there, but that would mean..."

Tifa waited for him to finish his sentence, but the red eyes just stared silently upward. Tifa was suddenly panicked.

"What do you mean? You think... you can't think he's..."

"I sense something above us, something powerful and magical... something definitely not human," Vincent said softly, his eyes narrowing.

"And if," he continued, "if that is what I think it is, then Cloud would not have allowed it to live."

Vincent looked at Tifa's pale face as she stared forward at the wall of ice, not seeing anything.

"Do you understand, Tifa?"

She looked at him, scared but determined. She nodded once, and then walked up to the cliff and grasped for a footing.

As she began to scale the last length of the glacier, Vincent looked down to where Barret was still lying. Barret rolled over and waved his arm weakly at Vincent, as if he were a mortally wounded soldier heroically waving away assistance.

"You... go on..." he said with an overly-exaggerated wince. "I... I'll hold down the fort here..."

Vincent rolled his eyes before turning on his heel and leaping nimbly onto a shelf of ice, jabbing his left arm into the solid mountainside on his climb after Tifa.

The wind had started to pick up, and the once clear blue sky began to rapidly fill with grey clouds. Tifa was not surprised, knowing how quickly the weather could change in a mountain climate. She did not take much notice to the newly biting wind as she determinedly crunched the frozen ice beneath her fingers.

Finally, Tifa could no longer see the tip of the mountain. She flung her arm over the next ledge and found the ice incredibly smooth, as if it were the polished marble floor of a palace. She heaved her body onto it, and saw a cave opening before her. Icicles as thick as tree trunks hung from the mouth of the cave, which appeared eerily lit as if from a light within. Not pausing for Vincent to catch up to her, Tifa marched straight into the cave, certain the Cloud was waiting just inside.

She looked up at the solid ice stalactites descending from the ceiling of the cave, sharp and lethal like swords of Damocles suspended precariously above her head. Running her hand along the smooth solid ice walls, Tifa was mesmerized by the natural beauty of the cave. Or was it natural? The arches between walls of glassy ice were like hand-carved diamonds, and the many dagger-like icicles were a beautiful array of prisms, reflecting the light from an unknown source and bouncing rainbows along the polished mirror-like walls of the cavern.

Gazing around at the beauty of the ice palace, Tifa became momentarily entranced and stood staring, unaware of anything but the beautiful colors and shapes around her. In the back of her mind, however, a growing sense of unease nagged that she was not alone. Sensing movement behind her, she spun around, right into a very solid, tall dark wall that had not been there before. Stunned at the unexpected impact, she looked up into the wall's flaring crimson eyes which always seemed to be set in anger.

"Vincent!" She gasped. "Don't sneak up on me like that!"

"...I am sorry, Tifa..." he said in his deep voice, muffled by the red shroud that covered his mouth.

"You must be careful," he continued. "This place is no ordinary cave. Remember the reason Cloud came here to begin with, to slay the wicked Ice Witch. This is her home, and it is undoubtably enchanted."

Tifa nodded numbly, a flush rising to her cheeks as she was embarrassed of her carelessness. She had been so absorbed that she had even momentarily forgotten her purpose in this cave to begin with, to find Cloud.

Vincent had drawn his gun and was now staring down the icy corridor, where the mysterious light seemed to shine brighter. Tifa took a deep breath and readjusted her gloves, determined to not let Cloud down by falling victim to the magic of this place. She wondered if perhaps that was what had happened to him, that he had gotten lost within the reflecting walls and become hypnotized.

Vincent gave a curt nod to Tifa before creeping silently down the corridor. She wondered how he could be so quiet, even with those pointy metal shoes of his. The rubber soles of her own shoes made a squeaking noise against the ice floor, and she winced with every step.

At the end of the long corridor, Vincent stopped right before the wall took a sudden turn. Tifa stopped and watched as he peered around the corner. His rigid and crouched body suddenly straightened, and he stepped fully into view of the next cavern. Tifa supposed that this meant that there was nothing in the next room to worry about.

She stepped beyond the wall and began to follow Vincent into the room, but was suddenly seized with terror when her eyes found the figure lying in the middle of the room.

Vincent rushed quickly to Cloud's side and kneeled to check for a pulse. Tifa abandoned all grace and sprinted to where he lay, her boots sliding over the glassy floor. His body was completely stiff, his hair and clothes encrusted with ice. Tifa immediately cast an extremely weak Fire spell, holding it up to his face. His lips were blue, and his eyelashes were nearly white with flecks of frozen condensation. Frightened, Tifa glanced up at Vincent, whose eyes were once again narrowed in an unreadable expression.

"Vincent, is he..?" She whispered, unwilling to say the words.

"Very weak, but not dead yet," he said quickly. "Hypothermia could kill him if we don't get him warm soon. Dim that spell and rub the heat against his skin."

Tifa did as she was told, dimming the Fire spell to a warm orange glow between her hands. She touched Cloud's face and immediately recoiled, feeling as though she had just been pricked with needles.

"His skin!" she exclaimed. "It's so cold, it stings!"

Vincent opened his mouth to reply, but at that moment, a deafening screech resounded through the cave. It sounded like a million women were screaming in pain, the discordant pitches piercing the cold air like knives. Tifa and Vincent covered their ears in pain as the sound waves broke icicles above their heads and split the glassy walls apart.

"It's going to cave in!" yelled Vincent.

He hoisted Cloud's frozen body from the floor and began to run for the exit. Tifa ran after him, narrowly dodging the falling icicle shards that had shattered in the cacophony.

Tifa ran, ice crunching like broken glass beneath her boots. She rounded a corner sharply and glimpsed Vincent running though the cavern opening to the outside. She sprinted after him, stumbling over the rifts that were carving through the ice floor beneath her and avoiding the falling pillars of stalactites. She was sure her ears must be bleeding with the shriek of that demon-esque voice, but she could still hear the cave collapsing all around her.

Suddenly, blocking her escape path was a robed figure framed by the light from the outside. Tifa felt as though her head was exploding as the shriek increased in pitch. She fell to her knees, her eyes blinded with white-hot pain.

The sound was so intense, so painful, it completely consumed her. There was no longer the sound of ice splintering and the collapsing cave; there was no sound at all. Only a voice reached her as she blacked out– a cold and cruel rasp, and nearly inaudible as she sank into unconsciousness.

"...Seek... beyond the ice... your life... as frozen as his heart..."

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Disclaimer: I did not create/publish/sell Final Fantasy VII, its characters, locations, plots, etc. It all belongs to Squaresoft.