Author's Notice: For those who screamed YazooXTifa, I could not do this with my previous one-shot because there was no substantial ground to continue so I started a multi-chapter fanfiction from scratch just for you guys. Enjoy!
Summary: Under the influence of Jenova, Yazoo takes the matter of revenge on Cloud to a personal level by taking away the thing Cloud treasures most: Tifa. But how does love come into this foolproof equation?
CHAPTER 01 – THE PLAN
In the midst of the chaos, he thought he fell a thousand feet. But when he woke up, he was floated on the surface of the murky water. When he made it to shore, which was about a hundred feet away, he felt the muck and grime stain his clothes, his long well-groomed hair, and his mind. His mind was clouded with one thought that lingered from the moment his eyes seemed as if they would close forever.
Cloud Strife won again.
But he did not! He proclaimed. After all, he was alive, and he had shot him through the chest with a spare gun after the fool cut up his other metallic prize into pieces.
He came back to the thought of Kadaj leaving them. It was all Cloud's fault. Brother's fault. If it weren't for the foolish Cloud Strife constantly stepping into their territory, Kadaj would not have died. Kadaj would sit beside him and come up with a clever scheme that was going to be foolproof against Cloud Strife this time.
Yazoo looked at his hands. Those idiots, he thought. The Turks. He was covered with Geostigma—the disease he thought he was immune to. Only the kids had Geostigma and Cloud but he thought he was the exception. Wretched fool.
He asked himself, where is Loz? The man searched the pools and the banks of darkness but there was none of a life that mentioned his closest brother. A brother in Jenova. A brother in Sephiroth. He searched a little longer; his dirty boots glided across the wet and sticky sand. He saw the little light there was but he was Superman. He was someone greater than Superman—it was a myth of some powerful man from another world called Krypton. Whoever he was, Mother probably ruined him.
He cleared his eyes. His hair was starting to bother him. When he could see clearly, someone moved in the light. Yazoo summoned magic within his hands when the someone stood up and walked away like he did not exist. Assuming the someone was familiar with where he landed, he called.
"Stop."
The someone obeyed and she turned to look at him with knowing. There was no sympathy in her eyes but an expectance. She carried a basket of flowers with her and she possibly might have been weak if it were not for her strong sense of expression. There was one question that made him wonder—where did those flowers in that basket come from? She waited for him to say something. Yazoo could not for he had never seen so much color on a single person.
But he wanted to talk to her.
"Who are you?" he asked. "Have I seen you before?" Before another word was spoken, her mysterious smile silenced him, and she vanished into the darkness. He did not bother to follow her for he felt her presence vanish like a specter. He only knew two people that have done that: Mother and Sephiroth.
Once he pushed the image of the flower girl out of his mind, he began to make his way out of the murky cavern. The stench was beginning to rise. By the time he made it to the stop, he recognized the town of Kalm. Alone this time, he had no plan for revenge for he plainly would do what Kadaj commands. That is, in all respects to their Mother.
When he treaded on dirty feet into the mellow rock roads of the town, people stared and glanced at him fearfully. In his tattered state, he did not bear the resemblance of Sephiroth but somewhere in the eyes and the aura and the smile he gave to the nervous and the trembling, they saw Sephiroth, but convinced themselves that it was not possible. So they ignored him.
He asked the closest bystanders, a fearful young mother with her frightened child. She dared not run for what he may do for no one else in this village could possibly stop him. No one could stop the fear they fed on when Sephiroth walked through this town and spared their lives only for them to bolt their windows and lock their doors—not that it would be able to defend them or anything.
"Where is a place I can clean up?"
The scared mother pointed to the motel. She could not say a word. When Yazoo sauntered away, she had an orb of materia in her hand but dared not use it. Anyone possibly affiliated with Sephiroth cannot be dealt with even with the best materia. The man came out of the motel an hour later, with the resemblance that struck Sephiroth far greater than their hearts have imagined.
But he left them in peace as they failed to move on with the rest of the day in fear he may come back. He walked on the road to Midgar. In the Kalm homes and hearts, they knew that all of the materia in their tiny town would do nothing to stop this man.