The Seventh Heaven bar was popular among the younger adults of the Midgar slums, but as the days passed, customers became more and more agitated at the conditions around the city. She saw it on their faces, she heard it in the stories they openly shared, and it was all too familiar. Tifa Lockheart was a black haired woman, with almost perfect features. Everyday drunken wrecks would stare into her eyes and not remember seeing a more caring and kind face in their entire lives. But Tifa's heart was reserved. She had employed a young man, Akugi, to help her take care of the increase in customers, and he was looking after the bar while she was on break. She sat outside the building, and around the corner, in an alley where hardly anyone ever set foot.
She had never guessed that the world being at peace, would be when she was most unhappy. Her heart was longing for a man who she only saw on the rare occasion these days. In the past, she had her chances to be with him, but Tifa was always one for the greater good, no matter what anyone told her. Her existence was dedicated to helping others, and making sure she had done all she could to make their lives easier, and her own self, was always the least important. And that was what had made Tifa's life hard. She leaned against the wall with her arms crossed; once again, thinking of the man she loved. The dreading feeling of spending her life away from him, alone, seemed to become more inevitable every day, and it scared her.
Akugi popped his head around the corner of the bar suddenly, but Tifa was too lost in her thoughts to notice him.
"Hey, Tifa! C'mon, we've got customers waiting!" the simple looking man said. Tifa snapped to attention and nodded, following the younger man back in to the bar. It was a good sign he showed enthusiasm about his work, but sometimes it could drive Tifa spear. She never showed her annoyance however, she had all the time in the world… for anyone. Entering the bar, the sunlight retracted from her eyes, and soon the smell of cigarette smoke filled her nostrils, and then her lungs. Tifa began to wonder how many years had been shaved off her life from the constant smoky atmosphere. Akugi brushed some out of his walking space while approaching the counter, but Tifa stopped in her tracks, staring at the television just below the ceiling in the corner of the room.
"ShinRa Corporation rise to take Midgar again – Rufus ShinRa is becoming increasingly more powerful as he attempts to rebuild his father's old energy company. While the general public fights against ShinRa for food rations much needed in the slums, ShinRa refuses to give any comments, or any money to this rapidly declining situation in lower Midgar."
Tifa's round brown eyes narrowed at the news report, and she crossed the staff-only barrier behind the bar.
"Rufus…" she said slowly, recalling events that happened three and a half years ago. He had kidnapped Tifa and her allies, only to later work with them to stop the monster that was Sephiroth. Thankfully, that monster was gone, and Rufus had no leverage over Tifa or any of her group.
"I can see the city going back into a depression… Hell, we're in a depression" Akugi said quietly to Tifa as drinkers paraded around the counter rambling on about ShinRa's evils.
"Sometimes nothing can change a person, not even being given a second chance" Tifa said, dropping her head to look at the counter top. Akugi assumed she was referring to Rufus, but Tifa had another in mind. Her black skirt and vest matched the bar well, but the red ribbon wrapped around her upper arm was an out of place feature. She caressed the ribbon with her fingers; it was one of the only objects she had to remind her of her true love, not that she needed to be reminded. She had only grown more certain of her feelings as the year and a half had gone past, but it was slowly eating her. Feelings for something that could never happen were bound to only to cause pain. There was a sudden tug on her skirt, and Tifa looked down to see a young girl's hand, both anxious and worried.
"Tifa!" Marlene called out. Marlene had grown a lot in just one year and a half, but still Tifa found herself kneeling down to the girl who she almost considered her own daughter. Big, brown eyes of innocence stared up at the bartender with distress.
"What's the problem, Marlene?" Tifa asked with a genuine concerned face. Marlene was almost jumping her little legs on the spot.
"It's Dad! He says something bad is happening at the oilfield!"
Tifa brought herself up from Marlene's level, and found herself looking at Akugi.
"Don't worry about it Tifa, I'll take care of things here."
She found herself impressed with his attitude, and thankful of his natural tendency to be a kind and caring person. She placed her hands on his arms, looked him in the eye and smiled.
"Thank you, Akugi."
Tifa briskly made her way through the upper section of Seventh Heaven, with Marlene restlessly leading her through a hallway. Barret Wallace had been having trouble with the oilfield lately; anyone would do anything to get their hands on it. It was probably just a handful of thugs, and Tifa couldn't work out why Barret would need help. Marlene handed her the phone with sweaty palms, and Tifa brought it up to the side of her face.
"Barret?"
"Tifa! Something's happening here at the oilfield, I need you to come by" came a deep, rumbling voice.
"Barret, is everything okay? What's going on?" Tifa asked, looking down at the man's daughter.
"Uh… Shit, it's nothing I can talk about over the phone. Tifa, will you just come by…" Barret said rather ignorant of manners. Tifa had grown used to his bossy attitude that came with his size, and she had never been too fond of it, but her relationship with Barret was strong, they were like siblings to one another. Tifa nodded to herself.
"Okay Barret, I'll come by. Is there anything you need? Do you want me to bring Marlene?"
"It's too dangerous for that! Just get over here!"
Tifa frowned at Barret's sense of urgency; normally it'd be hard to get him worried about anything at all.
"I'm on my way" she said quickly, hanging the phone up. She glanced at Marlene. "Can you stay here with Akugi? You're a big girl now; you can look after yourself."
"Just help Dad Tifa, please!"
The van was small, barely large enough to hold two ordinary-sized people in the cabin, but with her slender figure Tifa had no problem slipping in between the steering wheel and the driver's seat. She reversed the van out of the private car park and into the street, and steered for the gloomy, grey center of Midgar, where beyond was the small town of Kalm, and Barret's oilfield.
The air was cold and the sky was grey, if it weren't for the absence of skyscrapers and the green shades of the grassy plains, the oilfield would be a place a lot like Midgar. Two huge oil drums sat at the north-east end of the field, fastened with snaky pipelines and winding ladders. Tifa's van pulled up alongside one of the gargantuan white oil tanks, and as she stepped out of the vehicle, a wintry gust sent chills down her spine. Her black hair wavered in the wind, as she made her way cautiously across the all-too-silent field. Something wasn't right – Barret had a handful of employees who were constantly working in the fields, operating the drilling machines, which were scattered about carelessly throughout the brownish butchered plain. The main facility was at the eastern end of the field, about fifty meters away from the oil drums. Tifa treaded over a shaky drilling site, sending a miniature landslide of rocks crumbling down man-made holes beneath her feet. She swallowed hard as she conjured up the nerve to call out with her voice.
"Barret?" she called once, her own fear confirmed when she noticed the shakiness of her tone. Not a sound returned to her, and her pace slowed as she approached the door of the building. She opened it ever so slightly, wincing at the creaking drone it created, and peeked through to see what she could. Everything looked sound, but empty. She pushed the door completely open, and a corpse draped over a staircase welcomed her. Tifa gasped and her frail body jumped backward. She gulped as her thoughts considered the worst of possibilities. Barret might not have been alive. She shook the thought out of her mind and briskly advanced through the doorway, and toward the staircase, checking on the corpse. She turned her head away as the details stirred up her stomach, and pressed on up the stairway, being careful not to touch the blood-soaked handrail. Muffled voices soon came into hearing range, and her rate of progression quickened. Tifa swung around the top of the staircase and trotted lightly to a window which looked into an office, trying not to make a sound. She saw people inside, people she recognized – and they weren't hostile. Tifa whipped open the office door, demanding attention. Three sets of eyes shot in her direction. The first to notice her was a man of epic proportions, barely able to fit through the doorways of the facility. A huge, muscular right arm was burdened by a silver mechanical forearm, filed with electrical wires and moving parts. The dark-skinned man extended his robotic hand toward Tifa with his fingers stretched.
"Tifa!" he exclaimed, with the faint beginnings of a smile almost appearing on his face. The situation wasn't anything to be smiling about, Barret had quickly decided.
"Barret, you're alright" Tifa said with a sigh of relief. She speedily eyed the office's other occupants. Two agents in blue, tidy suits, who couldn't have been mistaken for anyone else. The Turks. Tseng watched Tifa's movements closely, although the Turks were on neutral terms with the old members of AVALANCHE, the grounds were shaky. Tifa kept her chin up as she peered at Tseng and Elena. "What's going on?"
Barret grunted as he dropped his black bearded face down to uselessly stare at the floor. He swung a mechanical arm in Tseng's direction.
"We've got a problem" the big man admitted. Elena narrowed her eyes but kept lifelessly still as she listened to what Barret had to say. "Someone is wandering across the damn continent, killing everything in his way!" he yelled, smashing a mechanical fist against the grey wall behind him. He took a glimpse at the light shining in through the only window offering an outside view. Barret sighed, and continued. "He hit us last night, only three other workers survived."
Tifa's eyes were filled with terror.
"Thr… three… survived?" she gasped, completely horror-struck. Barret tapped himself on his bare chest lightly.
"And me."
"He'll be coming back, possibly" Tseng announced. Tifa had almost forgotten that the Turks were standing in the room. His statement scared her further.
"He'll be coming back?" she cried in disbelief. "Who is he? What does he want?"
Tseng shook his head briefly and shrugged off the question with his eyes. Tifa looked at the others for an answer, but nobody seemed confident enough to give her a straight reply. Elena straightened her mouth and cleared her throat, turning to face Tifa with her shoulders high and her hands crossed over her front.
"Nobody's entirely sure who it is, but we can tell you one thing" she said, nodding her head in Tseng's direction. Tseng looked grim as memories of being wounded flooded his thoughts.
"He wields the Masamune" Tseng said plainly. Tifa felt her heart pounding in her throat, and had to lean back against the door to prevent herself from falling.
"Sephiroth's sword" she muttered quietly. Tseng felt the urge to grab his chest wound as the phantom pain started to tingle back again. He swallowed it down and began to speak again.
"We're here because ShinRa wishes to take the oilfield off Mister Wallace's hands."
"The President is going to make sure the situation doesn't get out of hand" Elena added. Barret grunted again while Tifa seemed to lose herself in thoughts next to the doorway.
"Out of hand?" Barret spoke up. "When you can't stop the deaths of whole groups of people being wiped out all at once, things are out of hand!"
Elena tilted her head, concluding Barret's thoughts were inferior to her own.
"But… you don't appear to have the same idea" she sighed, dishing out subtle signs that Barret was naïve in the matter, with expressions and movements that only a woman could master. Barret wasn't ignorant, he received her message, but it did nothing more than anger him.
"Hell no! If you ShinRas want to get yourselves killed that's fine by me, but you're not doing it right next to Kalm" Barret argued.
"President ShinRa says…" Tseng began.
"I don't care what you're damned President says now! Rufus almost got himself killed because he was so damn full of it! Thought he knew everything! And who knows how many people have died under his orders!"
"The subject will be contained to the oilfield, this is the most strategic position we have, and we can get him to come to us because he knows there were survivors. He'll come back, just like he chased after the hovercraft" Tseng explained carefully. The silence he had been hoping for filled the air as Barret absorbed his words. "We risk more lives if we don't do something about this now, Mister Wallace."
Those words hit home for Barret, and he found himself with the short end of the stick. "So far we've only established that he appears at night. We don't know where he is or what he's doing during the day. But President ShinRa assures you, he will be back before you see the sunrise tomorrow morning."
"You've spotted the asshole once and already you think you know his attack patterns?" Barret said.
"You know who he is. Sephiroth's actions can't be explained, he kills for the sake of killing" Tseng said quietly. He stroked a hand over his chest wound. "I can tell you that."
Elena watched Tseng, and she stared off into nothing as she recalled the emotional shock she had gone through when she had thought her partner dead on that day three and a half years ago. Tseng sauntered toward the office door, and genitally touched Tifa's shoulder. She came to her senses and stood aside, watching the Turks leave the room. Tseng looked back at them both while Elena continued down the stairway, observing the unpleasant body covering a portion of the steps. The leader of the Turks gave Barret and Tifa and quick nod. "We'll be back in five hours, with our equipment, ready to go. I trust you'll make the right decision, and vacate the premises."
Barret glared at the tall man, until he followed after his partner. Tifa nervously closed the door behind her, but had regained most of her usual boldness, and put on a brave face.
"I called you because I didn't know what to do… and you've always known what to do" Barret said softly. Tifa wanted to give Barret a compassionate smile, she wanted to do anything she could to bring about her warm atmosphere, but the news was just too shocking to feel positively about anything.
"The last time we left anything in the hands of Rufus, things didn't go so well" Tifa sighed. "Maybe we've grown used to the fact that ShinRa makes a mess wherever it goes."
"Damn straight. That's because it's true" Barret grumbled. With a metal arm, Barret grabbed a wooden chair and swung it over from out beneath the desk. He sat down on it, and his weight was almost enough to make the wooden chair legs break beneath him. He pulled his ripped and torn open black jacket forward over his shoulders, visualizing himself as someone important, and querying what they would do. It didn't take Barret long to figure out what the obvious solution was, and as he looked up at Tifa he could see the exact same thing was sitting in her head.
"We have to call him" Tifa said with a certain face. Barret breathed out, and then nodded a few times as he stared hard at the floor in front of him with large brown eyes.