Tyger, Tyger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
--William Blake
Tifa was deeply asleep and completely dead to the world. She'd always been a sound sleeper and had always snoozed through the most vicious storms the Nibel Mountains could manage. This night was different, the rousing chorus of the wind threatened to intrude on the gently muffled dreamscape. She stirred, squeezing her eyes shut and shifting in her sleep. The wind howled, whipping itself up to a full blown scream. With a muttered curse, she turned over and stuffed her pillow over her head. There it was again. A baleful scream that broke the tenuous line that led to sleep and her dreams...She moaned quietly, not caring how loud the wind might howl; only wishing it wasn't so insistent. Another scream came and this time, she wasn't sure if it was real or a dream or even the wind at all. She lifted her head groggily from underneath her pillow. Something was burning.
She crinkled her nose and frowned. Good god. The neighbor brat had set his house on fire...again. With a groan, she flipped on her back, turning her head to gaze blearily out the window. She didn't hear the telltale wail of the fire engines yet but she wasn't concerned. Nibelheim's fire force was small, but they'd dealt with the neighbor brat before. She cursed the little pyromaniac and hoped that they'd give him more than a slap on the wrist this time. Better yet, she hoped he burnt his stupid house to the ground. That'd learn him. With a grunt, she turned back over and collapsed into her pillow. Just as she drifted back into sleep, someone shook her shoulder roughly and she lifted her head, mewling incoherently at them.
"Tifa? Teef, are you awake?"
'No, I'm not. Bloody awful obvious'...she grumbled inwardly, recognizing the voice hovering above her as that of her father.
"Hey, kitten. You awake?" He asked again softly, nudging her shoulder a second time.
She dragged herself out of the comfortable haze of sleep reluctantly. He wasn't going to go away and she was painfully aware of the price of not waking up fast enough. Being dragged out of bed was an experience that she didn't wish to repeat. The one time he'd done that was one time too many.
"Mmmm....This better not be a joke..." She croaked hoarsely, her voice still thick with sleep as she sat up and rubbed her eyes awake.
"No joke, sweets." The shadowy blob that was her father replied, "Something's happened...."
Tifa was instantly awake, though still disturbingly bleary and tired.
"What happened?" She asked quickly, grabbing onto her father's forearm as he leaned on the bed.
"There's been an accident at the reactor..."
"No...that can't be right..." Tifa shook her head, interrupting him almost desperately, "But...Zack....He said that the reactor was fine....He said..."
"I know what he said. I know....but it is as it is. I want you to stay inside. Can you do that?"
"Wait. Wait...wait...I...What happened? Dad...How..."
"It's okay, sweets. The reactor exploded. Disturbed a nest of black dragons. I'm going to guide General Sephiroth up there to take care of it..."
"...No, you can't. Can't someone..."
"Who else is going to go?"
"I coul--"
"No. Stay here."
She tried to interrupt him, her mouth opened to object and he held up his hand to silence her.
"Just stay here until I get back..."
He wanted to say more, but his heart wouldn't let him and she could see it.
"Papa?" She asked, a plea and a question.
"What is it?"
"W-will..." She choked on the words and her lips trembled.
Gods, she'd tried so hard to be grown up. Projecting an image of a cool and confident girl, but underneath it all, she was still a child. She was only a girl and her father was all she had. He was her world and that world was now uncertain.
Taking a breath, she didn't want to ask the question but it came out anyway, "Will everything be okay?"
He hesitated, turning to look at her as moonlight and shadow cascaded over his gruff features. She could see his lopsided smile in the dim light but it didn't warm her heart as it always had before. Worry engulfed her as she waited for an answer. He said nothing. He straightened his back and stood up slowly. She could hear the vertebrae in his spine crack as he got up and a passing awareness of her father's fragility slipped through her mind.
He was always so strong and tall, invincible at one time. But he was getting older. There was grey where there once was black. Lines where there were none. A weariness in him that he'd never had before...and for the first time in her life, she was really afraid for her father. If there were wandering monsters, she'd be more fit than he to face them. But she knew he'd never let her go. As she thought this, she looked up at him with a worried expression. His face was veiled by night, unreadable. She felt him rest a hand on the top of her head, and she was absurdly reminded of a priest blessing the faithful. His hand slipped away and so did he.
For several seconds she watched his retreating form as it left her room. They were the longest seconds in her life thus far. She sat in the dark, her heart beating wildly. Would he come back? Would he really be okay? To calm her heart, she had to see and she ran. Her mind a wild and scattered mess, little bits and pieces of torn paper thoughts skittered across the dull pavement. She grabbed for them inwardly but they slipped through her fingers and so she satisfied herself with merely running.
Stopping dead at the top of the stairs, she could see her father as he walked down and towards the foyer. It was like a horrible dream. One in which she was running and running, trying to catch up but always failing. Whether it was because her legs didn't work properly or something was trying to stop her, she didn't know. But no matter how fast she ran, the figure she was chasing was that much faster.
Her father walked away from her, his shadow a retreating ghost. Paling in comparison with the dark figure he strode towards. Tifa froze in her tracks, feeling a jarring mix of feelings she wasn't able to detangle. This was the same figure that'd entered her warm world before and had nearly frozen it solid. Sephiroth. Her mind whispered the name as if to say it out loud would be an invitation of death.
He stood just inside the foyer, the door open wide behind him. Backlit by the glowing light from outside, she couldn't see his face at all but for his eyes, which blazed with predatory fire. Like the eyes of a jungle cat hiding in the underbrush, waiting for the gazelle to come just a bit closer. Those eyes looked upon her and they burned. Tifa felt herself take a minute step back, away from him. An unconscious move, uncontrollable. That is no man....a voice inside whispered.
She remembered suddenly a story her mother had told her. A warning tale, that when the gods were angry they'd send seraphim to judge the unworthy. They would streak down from the heavens and raze the ground, scorching the earth black until all was purified. Killing any living thing that got in their way, guilty or innocent, for divine justice is blind and their judges would not stop until it had been meted out.
The light outside flickered suddenly, creating a corona of blazing fire around the general's form. For a terrifying moment, her thoughts became confused and the reality of the story and the world collided. She looked at him with eyes open, as if truly aware for the first time ever and she saw him for what he was. A seraph in the truest sense. No angel, no benevolent creature...not even a man. A heavenly judge, sent to inspire fear and not awe. His beauty as cold and deadly as the snow that covered the hills of Nibelheim and her father was walking towards him. Her father was leaving with the seraph, he was leaving and Tifa could do nothing but watch, her hand clutched to her heart.
She opened her mouth to call him back too late, and her mind screamed 'Don't go' but nothing came out. Her last view of her father was him as he closed the door, and the light outside thinning into a vague slit before the night ate it whole. The door slammed and she was left in darkness.
What she felt was unreasonable and she told herself this. Trying hard to convince herself what she knew to be patently untrue. Her father would be safe. He would come back in one piece and later on, they'd both have a great laugh about it. He was with Sephiroth, the strongest warrior in the world if you believed the papers. Safe as a kitten. Safer than any person in the world. And it would be fine....but it didn't feel right.
Swallowing hard, Tifa descended the stairs, still somewhat paralyzed with inscrutable fear. Something wasn't right. She was shaking. She could feel it and she held out a hand to confirm it and found that it shook like an errant leaf in the wind. Looking away, she took one stair at a time, the descent seeming much like the last walk of the condemned. One foot sliding in front of the other, hesitantly going forward towards the inescapable and somehow doing that, she reached the front door.
Opening it, her eyes viewed an unfamiliar scene. She had thought she'd smelt smoke. Thought it was the neighbor brat. Wrong, so very wrong. Columns of smoke twisted above the tiny town, and she could plainly see the lick of flames on the far side of the city...near the Shinra mansion and the travel agency. The flames were spreading with ungodly speed. Already they'd consumed the houses on the street just before hers. And she could hear it then, above the roar of the coming fire. A soft moaning in the darkness. A muted wail. She watched, horrified, as the flames leapt from rooftop to rooftop unchecked as if enchanted to devour so quickly and so thoroughly. No fire acted like this, no real fire that started naturally, whether by dragon's breath or match. That kind of fire wasn't nearly so control, so precise. This was a fire started by materia. A fire made by man.
"Tifa? That you?"
She spun around, sighing in relief when it was only the neighbor brat's mom, "Yeah. Hey, Mrs. Ziffler."
"What's going on?" the older woman asked, hugging her worn housecoat closer to her.
Tifa looked back at the flames as it engulfed another house, "I don't know...but you better get back inside..." she said, whispering to herself, 'Or better yet...run.'
But somehow the advice seemed moot. Nothing could escape this fire. Her conversation with Zack earlier that day chose to come back to her at that moment. Floating up from the depths of her memory like an unpleasant fog. It suddenly dawned on her. Something was wrong....a whisper of thought....keep your eyes and ears open. She shook her head. That is no man. Her eyes were open. No man at all. Her ears heard it. There is an ominous aura in the mountain....Tifa acted, barely remembering exactly how she'd changed into her clothes, only that she did. She ran. Past the neighbor, who tried to stop her and was met with a fist to the face. The neighbor didn't matter. Her father did. Another voice called out. Her husband? Voice didn't matter. Running mattered.
Her feet carried her to the travel agency with effortless speed. She passed burning rows of houses. The city square was engulfed in flames and crumbling, she sped through it, avoiding debris as she ran. Smoke was thick in the air and though running like this didn't tax her anymore, she was still breathless and wheezing. She pulled a sleeve up over her nose and mouth, trying to limit her exposure to the smoke that could very well kill her. Where was the fire department? Coughing, she slowed, unable to see as she got closer and closer to the original source of the fire. She could barely make out the flaming ruins of the Shinra mansion. To her left was the travel agency, she could see it. Relief flooded her and she would have smiled, but coughed instead. It had been spared. She stumbled towards it, hacking and coughing the entire way. It was so warm. She wiped her brow, reaching for the knob. It was hot. She pulled her hand inside a sleeve and used it to open the door. Open...why? Didn't matter. Good for her. The smoke from outside had permeated the building and it was only a matter of time before it too was consumed.
"Papa?" She called out, coughing raspily in the shielded darkness, "Papa?"
She couldn't see and she stumbled blindly in the dark. Finding the door that led to the back office, she pulled it open, all the time calling for her father. It was so dark. The lights were out. Sightlessly, she groped the walls for the light switch and as she found it, her foot bumped against something hard. She flipped the light and looked down. What she found there was a perversion. Her mind was a complete blank. Too shocked to process the horrifying sight laid out before her. She couldn't process it. Didn't want to. And then she did.
Ismeta was sprawled on the floor in front of her. Face down, in a pool of blood. Her hand pressed limply against the wall, a vivid trail of red followed behind it. Paperwork was scattered all around the body and it had begun to soak up the blood. All Tifa could do was stare, eyes glittering. What had happened here? Why? Her eyes lighted on Ismeta's other hand, pen still clutched in it. She'd never use that pen again. It was a little thing. Those hands once moved. They were carefully manicured. Painted the same color as the lipstick she wore which was always coordinated with her outfit. Now both were stained. Blood hung from one fingernail and slowly, it beaded and dripped off, rippling the crimson pool beneath the body. A violent wave of nausea hit her and Tifa covered her mouth and closed her eyes. She had to get out. Can't go back. Have to go forward. She stumbled around the body; still holding her hand over her mouth...her other hand shook as she fumbled with the door knob and she burst out into the open air and collapsed to the ground on all fours, retching.
She puked until she dry heaved, sucking in wild breaths to try to get her stomach under control. For long minutes she stayed there. Shaking and gasping, until she pushed herself away from her own sick. The moaning of the city stopped. It was so quiet. What happened? No dragon did this. She knew what did but she didn't want to believe.
The wind stirred suddenly and she could hear the clear clank of metal against metal. Her eyes were drawn back to the door. In the knob were a large clutch of keys, just dangling there. She moved towards them and pulled them out. They were her father's. He never went anywhere without them. She could always tell when he was home by the clanking of those keys.
There was blood on them.
Blind panic slammed into her chest and she turned towards the trailhead she'd led the Shinra up days ago, her gaze lifting to take in the mountain. Again, she didn't think. Clear thought was a luxury she couldn't indulge in at the moment. She just ran. She ran as fast as her legs would carry her. The wind whipped against her face, causing tears to spring from the sides of her eyes. Scenery blurred as she ascended the mountain path in a panicked run. The cold froze her skin, plastered her hair to her head but it didn't matter. Taking the bridges she eased over before with a speed that bordered on reckless. She stumbled sometimes. There was a large rip in her jeans and her knee was bloodied but she didn't feel it. The world around her had gone deathly silent and she watched it pass her by in echoing slow motion. All she could hear was the distant pounding of her heart that resounded, drum-like, in her ears. She remembered distantly that someone had once told her that no matter how hard you strained your ears, you'd never hear the beating of your own heart.
They were wrong.
Each step became interminably slow. Her legs ached and she could feel herself tire. Every muscle in her body burned and screamed at her to stop at once but she ignored it. Running was what would carry her to her father and though she felt she was going unreasonably slow, she'd continue to do it even if it killed her. She'd run so blindly that she barely even realized she'd entered the Shinra encampment, skidding to such an abrupt stop that she almost tripped over her own feet.
What greeted her was horrific, a nightmare that never warranted discovering. It was like a medieval painting she'd seen once. All torn limbs and blood, the only thing it lacked were the twisted demons hovering above their helpless victims. An abattoir where there was once a neat little encampment. She let out a high, hysterical laugh. This wasn't real. It was a nightmare. All of it was a stupid, pointless nightmare, taking her worries from earlier in the day and flushing them out of her system via this dream. She would wake up any moment now. Her town intact, her father safe and asleep in his bed and all would be right with the world. It was a dream. It was a dream. Just a dream...all a dream. It had to be.
"Oh. God...."
And her heart beat faster and the worry and the pain didn't fade and soon the tears that the wind caused became real tears born of fear. The wind buffeted her, sending a chill down her spine...the stench of death came with the chill and Tifa could do nothing but admit that this was real. The blood and the horror...it was all real. It was too much. All too much for her to take and the world spun with dizzying speed, and she sat down before she fell down. Her head hung between her knees and she breathed in and out in long slow gasps to keep her gorge from rising. All the while, she soundlessly cried.
The smell and the sight of it...there was so much blood and the lack of any sound but the crackling fire and the wind. Did the human body really have that much blood in it? Tifa shook and closed her eyes. She had to keep focus. She had to find her father, then she'd sort everything else out. Rising to her feet with tremulous calm, she took a steadying breath before opening her eyes. She swallowed hard, her fingernails pressing uncomfortably into her palms but she moved forward with robotic slowness. Sidling around the bodies and their errant parts, carefully scanning the carnage for her father, praying she wouldn't find him there. Praying that by some miracle he was hiding safely somewhere while the general he'd gone up here with was heroically protecting him.
There was a growing suspicion in her mind that it was nothing like that. That the vision of the seraph was a bit more correct than she'd like to admit. No dragon would do this, sensible Tifa whispered, You have to know that....These chaotic thoughts collided and panic rose in her again. She called out for her father, tears blurring her vision as she stumbled blindly over bodies and body parts looking for him. When she received no answer, her calls became more desperate, a seething hysteria entering her voice.
Just let him be alright...whatever madness had overtaken her town she could deal with if only her father was alright. "DADDY!?", she screamed. No answer. Just let him be okay. Let her not be right about the cause. Please, please, please let me not be right...Let it be rogue dragons...because inhuman monsters she could deal with. Just let it be...anything but this...let it be...let it be.....
"Tifa?"
The voice was so weak, but familiar. She scanned the horizon, searching for him.
"Daddy, where are you?"
A moan came off to her left and she bolted in that direction. Her heart stopped. He was still alive, but very obviously wounded. She threw herself to the ground and scrambled to his side. Without a word, she turned him over carefully and her breath caught in her throat. Again, so much blood. It oozed from a medium sized wound just below his chest. It had been slowed because of the cold and his blood clotting, but it was still an open wound.
"Oh....god."
Her lips trembled and a sob she tried hard not to voice escaped. Her father groaned, his lids half-closed in pain. That wound wasn't from a dragon bite. She knew the size and shape of it. It came from a sword. All of her first aid training inexplicably disappeared as she realized this. Gone, like tumbleweeds in the wind and all she could do now was stare...stare dumbly at the wound that was bleeding her father of his life. Another groan came from her father, this one more pained than the last. He'll die if you don't do something, idiot. Stop it...just stop it and sort the rest out later. You can do this.
She inhaled shakily, "I can do this."
Hands shaking from the combined force of fear and the cold that wrecked havoc on her body, she opened up the front of her father's shirt. What lay beneath was blood and gore she couldn't even bear to see, because it was her father. This was her father, laying here like this. The wound gaped back at her, raw and open and very red. Oozing gelatinous blood in long, thick rivulets, the reddish well of torn flesh revealed layer after layer of exposed meat.
Tifa gagged and turned away, tears exploding from her eyes in a violent torrent of salt that cascaded down her cheeks. The salt reaching her mouth as she gasped and it tasted bitter. She clamped a hand over her mouth again and fought the pounding waves of nausea. Breathing in and out through her fingers in loud, desperate gasps, and by will alone she stopped it. Using every bit of training she endured to calm her heart and her stomach. She forced control upon herself, tamped down the wave of emotions that threatened to engulf her...and turned slowly back to her father.
Her entire body trembled and trying hard not to think, Tifa shakily grabbed her sweater and prepared to rip it. Numb fingers worked at the stitches and her ire rose. Nothing was as easy as it was in movies or stories. Ripping this one piece of cloth was no exception. It was exceedingly stubborn. The stitches didn't budge, the fabric didn't rip and several frustrating minutes was spent in trying to get it to do what she wanted.
"Just rip you piece of shit..." she hissed at it angrily.
With a grunt and a sharp tug, the damned thing finally gave. She wasted no time on idle thought. Cleaning the wound with melted snow and pressing the bit of fabric to it to staunch the slow bleeding. It was bad. She knew it. If help didn't arrive soon, he'd die. She couldn't drag him down the entire mountain by herself. So she had to trust to hope. The fire department had to be out by now, as well as the police and the Shinra general couldn't have killed all his men. They'd come up here eventually. She just had to be patient. Just had to wait. She pulled the makeshift bandage away to check the wound. God...it wouldn't stop. Even with the cold, it wouldn't stop.
Licking her lips, she pushed a bit more firmly against it, shifting her gaze to regard her father. He was so pale. His lips were bloodless, that ruddy glow to his cheeks was gone. Inwardly, she screamed with frustrated fear. He couldn't die. She wouldn't let him. His eyes opened, they were glazed but finding her face, they sparkled a bit with recognition. He smiled weakly, his breath hitching with relief.
"Hey, kitten..."
"Hey, Da...How you doin'?"
"Not so good."
"No, don't say that. You're okay. I'm here and it'll all be okay." She replied in blatant denial, pausing to gaze at him with a fragile smile. She whispered, "It'll be okay...we just have to wait for someone to..."
Her father shook his head, setting a bloodied hand over her own. He spoke haltingly, breathing each word through clenched teeth, "No...no one's coming. They're all..d-dead. This wound...too bad...Teef...You have to get out of here...Se--"
"No." She said, more firmly than she intended.
Her dark brown eyes reflected her inflexibility on the issue. She would NOT move from this spot. Not without him. Her face was tear streaked and smudged with dirt and more tears threatened to fall. She looked like a sparrow that had broken its wing, so helpless in the midst of all this carnage. That belied her inner strength, which poured from her eyes as fast and as furious as her own tears.
"What happened?" She asked, with a dangerous finality to it despite the nasal tone of her voice.
A long stretch of silence overwhelmed them. Her mind was forced to beat back a myriad of horrible images. Each one more terrible than the last. None of them involved what the hidden part of her mind knew but refused to believe, forgetting that sometimes, the most terrifying monsters are those that wear human faces.
"S-Se-Sephiroth...."
Her ears heard nothing after that. She knew it. All this time she knew it, she felt it and she ignored it. Knew it. Knew it. Knew it. She knew it before it had even happened and had said nothing. Felt it before Zack even told her but she pushed it away. She'd seen it the minute she'd met him in the travel agency so many weeks before. And she'd kept it to herself, waved away her feelings as superstitious nonsense and this was where her negligence led her. But what could you have done? Who would have believed you? 'Shut up.' she snapped at that sensible part of herself that chose this moment to try and relieve herself of guilt. You're not the guilty one. He is. She opened the tinderbox and waited.
"Why?" she asked, in an almost calm, businesslike manner.
"Duh-don't know....Just w-wuh-went berserk."
She nodded heavily, hoping and praying while holding her father's hand. The world quieted around them. She sat with her father as he languished in pain, looking at him and deep inside she knew these were their last moments together as father and daughter. Tifa fought back the tears and the desperation, the fear of his imminent death knotting inside of her. Oddly enough, she wasn't cold. The inferno around them took care of that. It couldn't really spread anywhere else and so it just burned uselessly. To Tifa, everything seemed muted and bereft of life. Death surrounded her, inside and out and at that moment, she gave into despair. No one was coming. They were alone on this god damned mountain. Her imaginary fingers pulled out the flint, preparing to strike, her heart waited patiently for the flame to be lit.
Snow fell from the cloudless sky, much like it had twenty years earlier. As if nature confirmed the unnaturalness of the night's events. It drifted down silently from above, blurring the gruesome scene with a soft, white patina of faded glory and ageless sorrow. Things again took on a dreamlike quality that was by turns calming and disconcerting.
"I-I'm sorry..." her father stuttered out suddenly, seeing the change in his daughter's eyes and the subtle slumping of her shoulders.
It was a fatal whisper. The last dying breath of hope and she looked at her father with eyes darkened by its loss.
"What?" She managed to squeeze the word from her throat.
Tears hung at the sides of her eyes and she tried desperately to keep them back. Again, she tried so hard to be older and wiser than she was but her youth couldn't be denied. Death should have been a far off thing to her...but it seemed to cling tenaciously to her trail. Hunting her like a ragged dog tracking a fox.
"I'm suh-horry, sweets. Sorry I wasn't a better dad to you...I wanted to say that...haven't...got long...but I wanted you to know. So much I should have...but I didn't...Should have been there after..Sare...after your mother died...So sorry..."
Her efforts were futile. The tears came, hot and unrelenting down her cheeks, burning vivid trails of sorrow into her skin.
"No" she breathed, shaking her head, "No. Don't talk like that, okay? Don't...it's gonna be okay...we just have to..."
"No, kitten." he said, so softly, so gently that she could almost hear as her heart broke. She was losing him. "...I'm dying..."
"No...." A demand.
"Teef...."
"No." A plea.
The hand she didn't hold lifted up, trembling as he touched her cheek. It left behind dark little trails of blood. His blood.
"S'okay. I don't want any regrets...." he whispered, with a sad little smile, "God, your mother would be proud of you.....You know, I'll always love you, right?" She nodded, not caring that her face was awash in tears, "Promise me something, kitten." Another nod. "Promise me. You won't do anything...Don't die for me. Get away from here. Run....I want you to run, kitten. Can you do that?"
"Anything you say, Da....Just...don't...don't..." Her voice faltered, unable to say those last few words.
"Can't...I'm so sorry, kitten. So sorry...forgive me..."
"For what? You big dummy...Quit saying that... just relax now, okay? Things'll be..."
"Things will be hard...and I'm sorry I left you in this world..." He looked up at her then, eyes glassy and distant, "Funny old world, isn't it?"
"Yeah." She said, mid sob. "It is."
He smiled then. So serenely, like he was viewing something so wondrous and joyful that mere words could never explain its form nor its meaning. He left the world with that expression, his last breath was that of pure relief that he'd left all pain behind. For the second time in her life, she'd watched the life leave the eyes of a loved one. She saw whatever divine spark that was in them one moment, escape the next and again, she was left helpless and alone. Her hand gripped his more firmly, as if she could prevent his death by doing so. Tifa stared at his hand in hers, stared at it like it was the only thing left in the universe. Her only tie to this existence...and it had been broken.
"Dad, my fingers are tired. Can I stop now?"
Tifa looked up at her father, hands still at the piano, with eyes that pleaded for him to relieve her of this torture. He smiled at her conspiratorially. This was his idea face and when her dad had an idea it always meant fun for her. She just bet that he'd take her somewhere really neat this time.
"Well, I did find this beautiful well just the other day...but..." He paused and winked at her, the grin never leaving his face, "Don't tell your mother." She nodded and hopped off the seat. He held his hand out. "Gimme yer paw."
The little girl smiled and took his hand.... Tifa blearily shook away the remembrance, still holding her father's hand. With slow defeat, she buried her head in his chest and wept. The snow fell all around them, like the fast and distant strokes of a painter; it covered over the carnage that surrounded them. It shrouded the encampment in pure white, the snow standing out brilliantly, blinding in its whiteness. She stayed there as if frozen to the spot, letting the snow gather on her shivering form. Not caring one bit if she died there. More snow fell, faster and in larger flakes...lending a surreal beauty to the stark image.
"I'm already dead"...she thought, "I just haven't realized it yet."
Minutes became hours, hours became days and it seemed like she'd been here for somewhere short of forever. Maybe this was eternity. Maybe she was forever trapped in this moment and time just looped around her like the sick skipping of a frame being constantly rewound. She hoped whoever engineered this in heaven was happy. No, no. There was no heaven and no god...any goodness in this world was a fluke, an accident. No divine watch dog hovered above this ball of rock to guide humanity. There was no kind and loving deity that awaited the soul after death. There was only death and the bleak nothingness that came after. Besides, what kind of god would do this? Would allow this...this sickness to happen? And the bitter defeat soaked through the walls of her heart to her mind and sunk into her soul.
Tifa lifted her head slowly; it felt heavy from all the crying. So heavy that she imagined her neck might shatter like glass. No more tears came. It hurt too much to cry. She gazed down at her father, his face so still in death. Peaceful. The world...It had stopped for him, and he'd gotten off on the next stop without her. Now she was left to wait for the bus alone. Wasn't fair...Tenderly, she wiped the blood from his lips, the dirt from his face and she pushed back an errant lock of hair one last time before closing his eyes. His hair had always given him trouble like that. It was time for him to get a haircut. She was going to remind him. Tell him he was getting cat ears but it was too late now. She placed his hands over his heart, stroking his worn knuckles as the snow fell. It melted when it touched his skin. Still warm.
A flake hit her cheek and she shivered as the gentle cold brought her back to reality. She looked around at the carnage as it disappeared under the gathering flurries of snow. Would Shinra cover this up the same way? Bury it under a stack of papers, just like whatever had happened here twenty years ago? Or maybe...maybe this was their revenge for Nibelheim slipping through their fingers. Maybe they were the new Wutai and this was their grammar school lesson in how to not fuck with Shinra.
They'd known...that much she figured out. They knew Sephiroth was unstable. Why else would they send him here? The great hero of Midgar, coming to an otherwise undistinguished little nothing town like Nibelheim...to kill monsters. It was fucking ridiculous. They'd only send him here if they thought they couldn't trust him anywhere else and even then, they were wrong. But if he fucked up here...if he fucked up here, who the hell would care. The world at large barely knew Nibelheim existed. They knew. God damn it, the fucking bastards knew. Zack had said it. He called them and they ignored him. She couldn't put her finger on it, but there was something else behind this...something more sinister than she could begin to guess but that one plain fact held true. Shinra knew he was a liability and they didn't care. The pain and the rage grew and the flint struck...and she burned.
She felt her blood turn cold and deadly, an unseen wound bled out but it couldn't bother her anymore. Not with ice in her veins where blood should be. Let it bleed. Let it bleed and burn until there was nothing left. She forgot her promise to her father and she let it bleed instead. They'd taken him from her. Taken everything. Her town...Cloud. And now her father. He was all she had and they took it. He took it. He that wouldn't be named, not for fear but for the hate it induced. He whose name she'd curse till the day she drew her last breath. Sephiroth...Shinra...she hated them all. They'd pay. She looked down at her hand still smudged with her father's blood. They'd pay in flesh. Eye for an eye. Tooth for a tooth. His blood for her father's. Her fingers curled over the blood, forming a defiant fist.
Rising slowly, she didn't bother to wipe away the frozen tears or the vertical stripes of blood still left on her cheek from where her father touched her. It was mortal war paint, to prepare her for the gift she was to give. They'd all pay. Death was her gift to them. Death was the only gift she had and she would give it willingly. Her gaze left her clenched fist, coolly regarding the ground as she searched for a weapon. A sword lay next to the battered body of a Shinra grunt. She picked it up without hesitation. Held it aloft, swinging it to gauge its weight, gazing at the surface and checking the blade before she was satisfied it'd do. She looked at its mirrored surface and was startled to see the eyes that stared back at her. The placid cocoa brown she'd always known was gone. These eyes were filled with cold fire. They burned...like he burned. Like the town burned. She barely recognized herself in them and the sensible part of her surged up and screamed at her to think. What was she doing? It was quickly shut out. Vengeance is a living thing. It writhes and crawls and motivates through pain and fury. It is without logic. Without mercy. It consumes until there is nothing left...and she burned.
The sword would serve her...and she would serve vengeance. Lowering her weapon, her eyes locked on the unguarded reactor entrance. Snow fell around her and the wind stirred. Long tendrils of dark hair drifted over her face, obscuring her vision. She brushed it away carelessly. Standing there like that she was the very image of a warrior maiden of old, dangerous but with a tragic beauty that seemed to never fade, no matter what horrors were put to her. With a languidly relentless stride, she stalked forward. Walked through the blood and the bodies...she walked through the fire and was not surprised to find it did not burn.
The door to the reactor loomed. It should have been forbidding. She should have been afraid. Her hand touched the logo as she peered upwards. Whatever came after this moment...didn't matter. She had nothing more to lose anyway. Her leg raised and swung forward and the door unhinged from the force of her kick. Busting inward, it fell with an unceremonious clank as she stepped inside. She paused for a beat before entering, surveying the dark interior carefully as she stepped over the door. An eerie sort of calm had overcome her. This was what she was set here to do, to put down a rabid dog. She looked up and saw the object of her hate. The white haired devil stood at the top of a long set of stairs. His hand rested on another door and he was whispering to it, begging it for something as he rocked back and forth on his heels.
"SEPHIROTH!", She snarled, in a voice laden with fury.
He turned ever so slightly to regard this nuisance, his silver hair glinting in the half light as he moved. The look in his eyes as he pivoted to face her chilled her to the bone. There was nothing there. Less than nothing. Not even a void, his eyes were black holes and all light was engulfed by their gaze. He's insane...Her eyes narrowed. Sane or insane. Didn't matter.
She'd gazed into the mouth of madness and couldn't look away. This man...he was...he was no man. He might have been before, but this...thing...that stood in front of her was evil. Inhuman, ungodly evil that was given a fair countenance....a disguise that fooled you into believing you were dealing with a man. But it was no man. What could she do against such a thing? She was just a girl...a foolish little girl, with a borrowed sword and a handful of techniques that couldn't hope to manage against the strongest warrior in the world. It was suicide. To fight him meant she'd die...The image of her father's battered body appeared before her. Ismeta. Her town....She was dead already. And death is my gift...my gift to you. The realization came and her calm returned. Her eyes went cold and she raised her sword.
"I owe you pain." She spit each word out with venomous clarity, glaring at him with all the hate she held in her heart.
The sonvabitch actually smiled.
"Leave, human...or do you wish to fight me?"
Red filled her vision and she lunged for him, sword outstretched. He didn't move, waiting with bored disinterest at the top of the stairs. In a graceful mirror of her fight on the mountaintop, she pushed herself off the ground and launched herself into the air. Doing a mid-air flip, she brought the sword down over her head. With a resonating clang, the blow was deflected with the easy flicker of the demon's wrist and with such force that it sent her flying backward. She managed to gain control of her descent and landed at the bottom of the stairs on bended knee. Languidly, she turned her face up to glare at him through the dark cascade of her bangs. This wasn't over.
Almost casually, he descended the stairs towards her, a mirthless and arrogant smirk on his face. He was toying with her. She expected that. Did she have a chance against him? No. Was there danger in playing with his prey like this?
Tifa sneered and somersaulted to her left side as he neared, vaulting herself up off the floor with one hand. She struck. He blocked. Raking the edge of her sword against his so hard it generated sparks. She pivoted out of the trap, swiping at him with wild, yet eerily precise strokes. None of them hit. He was barely even looking at her and he managed to parry every blow. Tifa became frustrated and in the moment, she let her anger take over and she lost focus. She hefted the sword over her head and swung it down like a machete. His sword met hers with a sharp, metallic clang. There was a pregnant pause, where she struggled against his superior strength while he bore down on her weapon.
"...For a future disciple of White Crane, you are very foolish."
The thin blade of her sword began to crack underneath the steady pressure of the legendary sword and the demon who wielded it. A hairline fracture formed where steel met steel and with a loud tang the weapon split in two. The tip of her sword fell to the floor, the sound as it hit the floor curiously resembled a death knell. The other half of the sword remained in grip, her hands clinging to it so hard that her knuckles had gone white. She snarled and broke away. Swinging her arms behind her, she caught the floor with a hand. Her legs followed her and in that split second, she flung what remained of the sword at him. He caught it easily. It was an odd moment of clarity, as time paused in its constant ticking. Silver hair floated gently to the floor...and a small wound at his neck opened and bled. He was surprised.
She used her advantage and came at him. In one motion, she lifted her foot into the air, well above her head, and swung it out. The steel toe of her boot connected with his sword hand, which she'd noticed he'd be favoring, perhaps from an old wound. It was enough to knock the masamune from his hand but the realization brought no triumphant howl. She pivoted and let her boot connect with his face, satisfied to see his head snap back and the look of surprised pain on that face. Twisting, she launched a series of devastating strikes on him which for the most part, were not blocked. The full beauty of her form bloomed and her legs became her wings, her ticket to freedom from pain.
Apparently he wasn't that gifted at hand to hand combat. It was good to see that there were some things even the devil couldn't do well. Her fist flew in for a knockout blow but was stopped. No, crushed by his hand. He'd blocked it. He blocked it. Her eyes widened. On one level, she knew this would happen. She had no chance against the greatest warrior that ever lived. They don't give those kind of titles idly. The devil had been playing with her again and revisited every blow given to him on her, beating her bloody. Hitting her so hard that the pain vibrated through her entire body, she tried hard not to feel it but it was futile at best. His glowing eyes regarded her as she sat on the floor, struggling to stand. He pinned her down with the weight of his gaze, like a spider to a fly. His hands were at her neck and seconds later she could feel the wall crashing into her back. She could feel the hard rubble behind her as it bit into her flesh. It hurt too much to ignore the pain but she didn't cry out. She only wished the wound in her head would stop bleeding so she could see a bit better.
His fingers tightened around her throat and she gasped desperately for breath. The world spun as she fought for air and as she felt the black tear at the edges of her vision, she gazed at the monster. The sounds of the reactor had disappeared into a high, aching buzz in her ears. Dots danced in front of her eyes and she struggled to complete her thoughts.
She was going to die.
"I'm sorry, Papa..." she whispered to herself hoarsely, the black encroaching on more of her sight.
The cruel fingers around her neck loosened and a voice that embodied unfeeling ice filled her ears. Her eyes snapped open as she gulped in what air she could.
"....How touching. He is an insect, as you are...as all humans are. Insignificant and you will all share the fate of such insignificance." He paused, his catlike eyes glowing brightly feral, "Humanity is a disease. A plague...and it will be exterminated. Expunged from history, crushed under the boot heel of a superior being."
She looked into those eyes. Her fading vision struggled to look at anything but those eyes. They were the mouth of hell, of madness and she'd fallen into them. So bright but clouded with dark ambition. She would die but she wouldn't lose her pride. Her eyes had gone glossy with the realization and she summoned the last of her strength. Those dark orbs flickered with a final spark of defiant fire. Her lip curled into a derisive sneer and she spit in his face. She spit her last breath at him and waited for those fingers to tighten around her neck and take her life with it. The bastard smiled. The same condescending smirk he'd give her earlier. He leaned in close. So close she could feel his breath on her skin and she squirmed with disgust.
His face was made of stone. She trained her gaze on him, turning her head sideways as far as it would go.
His lips barely moved as he spoke in a mere whisper, "The world grows weary...and so do I."
THUNK!
Something heavy hit her chest. Hit her so hard that air was driven from her lungs in one harsh gasp. Pain exploded in her chest and she was momentarily overwhelmed by the feeling. It burned. Breathing, it hurt. She looked down at the broken sword sunk into her chest. It had pushed through her flesh, thrust in with such force that it had most likely broken ribs. He stopped, still holding the sword with a faraway look on his face, as if he wasn't there anymore. She numbly stared at the hand that had plunged her own weapon into her chest. It was sunk hilt deep into her flesh and it should have hurt more...but the pain was fading away. Odd. Blood oozed from the wound lazily and with each greedy gasp, breathing became more difficult. Impossible, even. A wet rattle was in her chest, she could hear it and was taken back to that time she had pneumonia when she was eight. Same pain. Different cause.
His sleeve pulled back again and her rapidly dimming eyesight focused on the flash of pink she'd seen before. He'd hidden it and she'd been certain. It was a ribbon, a stained ribbon wrapped so carefully around his wrist. Who'd given it to him? Absurdly, she wondered what they'd tell the girl about what happened here. How much? If they told her anything at all. Would she believe them? Poor, foolish girl. To fall in love with such a monster.
She coughed and felt blood up come, gurgling as it dribbled out the side of her mouth. Death is my gift....sensible Tifa sang to her, with a sad lilt. She tried. Tried and failed. Broke her promise to her father. It had been suicide, a race with death that she'd lost but she regretted nothing. Only everything. She barely felt the tears that came, barely felt anything at all.
"Why do you cry..." his cool voice whispered.
It sounded different from before. Devoid of harshness, inquisitive, as if he really wanted to know. She looked up at him groggily. Burning black meeting cool green. She was shocked. It had to be her imagination or perhaps her pending complete mental collapse...but...his eyes. They'd changed. No longer were they angry neon but placid jade. The irises were no longer demonically slit, like a snake's but rounded. Human. A distracted look of confused sorrow flitted over his features and for a moment she pitied the bastard. Tenderly, he thumbed away a tear with a gloved hand and stared at it, rubbing it between thumb and forefinger before looking at her again with that same, sad damn expression.
"...You will see him again..." He said, the remorse in his voice almost sounding real. "...You are too strong to cry..."
And as quickly as the transformation had begun, it was undone. The human shell she'd seen had fled before the demon and his eyes burned angry acid. That burning malevolence returned and branded itself on her memory, etching the image into her retinas so that she would never forget the face of her murderer. It was the last thing she saw before he dragged the sword upward and pulled it out brutally. Her sight was swallowed by the darkness and she floated in a sea of black, muffled sound. She was barely aware of her body but she did feel him toss her away like a rag-doll. There was a sharp blow to her back and she felt the stairs as the dug into her but she didn't recognize the pain as her own. She was beyond it, tumbling in a half-conscious world of blue-grey. The world spun around her and between all the falling and crashing, she passed out. To reawaken minutes later and in agony.
Sephiroth was gone. There were voices, but they were very far away. She wondered if she'd be able to see her body once she was dead. The books always said that you'd see your body. She wondered when she'd get to do that. Something brushed against her face. A hand? She opened her eyes and through her blurred vision she could see a figure.
"Cloud?" she croaked, her voice echoing in her own skull. It was far away too.
The blurry figure nodded and she smiled softly, suddenly feeling reassured. This must be heaven but then why were there tears? She hadn't even realized she'd been crying this entire time, even while unconscious. She supposed something in her soul wouldn't let her stop. Perhaps she'd always been crying on some level. The figure didn't answer.
"...you came..."
The figure nodded, his voice choked with emotion, "Teef...what happened? I'm..."
She coughed when she meant to laugh. He was here, "You're late...." She whispered before the black broke in.
If she were to die here that was okay and if she was already dead, then that was okay too. Cloud was here. She could feel his arms around her. She could hear his voice as she faded away. Love is love and not fade away...a contented smile crossed her face as it froze in silent repose. She let her mind stray out of time into the helpless vortex of unconsciousness and just before all awareness left her, she could feel someone moving her before the darkness swallowed her.
As a lone figure left the smoking mountains, Nibelheim continued its slow burn. The moon turned molten red, bleeding under the relentless fire that had consumed the town, bleeding as the wound that never healed was wrenched open. When the morning came, when the fires died down, there would be nothing left but the husks of buildings and corpses twisted beyond recognition. But now there was only the night and the dark silence of death that overshadowed the placid surface of the lifestream. It rippled as the souls of Nibelheim's dead rushed into the planet's heart, shrieking in agony as they went.
And deep within the muffled night, Midgar's stillness was broken as the last cetra woke with a scream.
NOTE--THIS IS NOT THE LAST CHAPTER! Two to three more, folks. We're in the end stretch.