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Freaky Resurrection

Chapter 3 – Wonder Antenna

Tifa Lockheart was having a headache. Definitely, undeniably and unquestionably, she was upset. And an upset master martial artist even if she was a mere woman was someone anything that possessed a working brain with even the slightest cell of intelligence knew to keep a good distance from; however, this wasn't applied to one absolutely oblivious blond.

No, Cloud Strife wasn't dumb or brain-dead; in fact, he was a little bit on the bright side but he could be incredibly dense to the point of total ignorance sometimes, especially right now that he was obviously greatly moved with brand-new light of shining hope, which, of course, the cause of Tifa's headache at the moment.

You may want to know the reason why. Well, in that case, let us turn the clock back to six hours earlier from now.

/Six hours earlier/

It was Sunday and the infamous Seventh Heaven bar wasn't in business, therefore it was Tifa's day off. It was a beautiful morning and after her full time of eight hours sleep, Tifa was up – bright and full of energy. She was in a great mood and since Cloud decided to take the children out to the amusement park, after breakfast she had all the time to herself.

It was then that Tifa decided she would enjoy her free time upstairs doing her super secret and yet favorite hobby.

Reading hardcore yaoi fanfictions.

Yes, Tifa Lockheart, despite having a long time crush on her childhood friend, was secretly a yaoi fangirl. And now that she was all alone, Tifa was happily clicking and viewing through smutty fictional stories that not-so-surprisingly involved names of people and places she knew. Actually, it was quite exciting to read about her crush being gay and getting intimated with other hot bishies.

Now, don't get her wrong, she loved Cloud. But sadly, the handsome blond had never returned her feeling, for he was still thinking about Aeris all the time despite her being dead for almost a year now. True, they were living together but they never became anything more than best of friends who supported each other. Cloud seemed to prefer keeping his thought about Aeris to himself, though.

Still, Tifa hadn't given up on him yet. The others had suggested she moved on but she just couldn't. One-track in love, that was the way she was, so maybe reading about dear Cloudy getting molested by Vincent or Sephiroth was kind of a twisted form of let out for her and lately, she had become addicted to reading these fanfictions that it became an obsession.

However, secret was never always secret because Cloud Strife had decided to come home early that day and since the only PC was in Cloud's room and Tifa was too absorbed to notice his presence, doom of her beautiful day had arrived in the form of a pair of curious blue eyes.

"…Vincent's face was sad as he looked into the endless depth of azure-blue eyes, knowing with the whole of his heart his own form became trembling the heart -wrenching sorrow of losing someone you loved. But he knew, oh he knew, Cloud had to kill Se-"

Tifa jumped at the voice. She stood up and turned around so that her body was in Cloud's way of seeing the monitor, her hand –behind her back - quickly clicking madly on the back button. "C-Cloud, you're back early!"

"It wasn't as fun as thought." The blond waved it off briefly while trying to sneak a peek at the monitor. "What're you reading, Tifa? Why does it have My and Vincent's name in it?"

"N-nothing! Cloud, why don't you go change first? I'll get you some drinks." Tifa said nervously.

Cloud narrowed his eyes.

There were times that Cloud Strife was very, very dense and ignorant; however, there were also times that he was frighteningly sharp and curious and this was the time Cloud decided to show that latter side of his. His antenna - say it was that one most obvious spike of hair – rose to the highest point where it could receive best signal. His blue eyes twinkled with an ease to explore.

Lightly shoving Tifa to the side, Cloud sat down in front of the PC and started to read through the page. (Tifa was twiddling her fingers as he did this.) It was the page with a list of stories and their summaries. Cloud skimmed through the page quickly but immediately stopped as his antenna caught some signal of interest.

With no hesitation but strong determination, Cloud clicked on the link and started to read.

/Back to the present/

"There! We're about to land!" Cid announced loudly to every friggin' passengers of his before emanating a big puff of smoke from both his mouth and nostrils – looking at the moment like an overly happy old dragon.

Reeve coughed, being the closest one to the toxic gas. He was still very happy, nevertheless.

Yes, everyone was supposed to be happy and if Tifa didn't know the painful truth she would be happy too. Rival in love, they were but Aeris was still her friend – nicest of all she ever had. Not to mention that her great sacrifice had saved the world. Yet Tifa knew the truth, she knew that what Cloud had read was not true because it was, alas, just another Aeris resurrection fanfiction.

She had told him that, excluding what she was reading earlier, but Cloud thought that the fic was a message from god that responded to his daily prayer of undying love for the flower girl and that his Aeris sense, according to his wonder antenna, was ninety-nine point nine-nine percent precise.

Well, Tifa was a girl with a good heart and she didn't want her friends - all of them since after hearing the news from Cloud decided to come see Aeris together – to be disappointed. But just like miserable Cid when deprived of nicotine, poor Tifa, deprived of smutty yaoi, was kinda irked with Cloud's nonstop boast of his wonder antenna that he deemed able to send message to the god.

Angel Tifa and Devil Tifa were fighting on each side of her shoulders about whether she should final heaven the daylight out of the blond or not. And their heated bickering was giving her a bad headache.

It was a matter of time before the girl lost her temper and scared away even the little devil on her shoulder. Poor, poor Cloud.

(x)

It was almost 3 in the afternoon when the two genderbent people reached the town of Wutai. And to Aeris' great surprise, she, I mean, he saw the airship he remembered seeing at Junon, parking on the nearby grassland area there.

"This is…Shinra's airship." He said wistfully, remembering how the flower girl wanted to be up there and how a certain blond bodyguard promised her he would take her up one day…

Sephiroth snorted.

She knew the airship wasn't Shinra's possession at the moment. She remembered how her male self's beauty sleep in the Northern Crater was rudely disturbed by the noisy engine sound of that stupid airship. (Sephiroth was a very light sleeper, mind you.) Well, that was another story now.

Still, it was none of her business to tell the braided man whose airship it was.

"Hurry up. I don't plan to stay in this cursed pinkness forever. Nor do I plan to permanently lend you my attire."

Aeris sighed and put his hands on his hips to indicate his slight irritation. "Oh, sorry if it's cursed. It's not like we have a choice, have we? I don't want to stay in your attire forever either."

"I thought someone sang and danced in worship of its sexiness."

"That's my sexiness, if you'd correctly recall." Aeris retorted, smiling.

"Your sexiness?" Sephiroth asked with a raised eyebrow.

"My sexiness." Aeris confirmed firmly with confidence.

"Your sexiness?" Sephiroth asked, raising another brow.

"My sexiness." Aeris confirmed again, not smiling.

"Your sexiness?" Sephiroth asked with a trace of mockery in her voice.

"My sexiness." Aeris confirmed, glaring.

"My sexiness?" Sephiroth asked again.

"Your sexiness!" Aeris confirmed loudly, glaring even harder.

A smug smirk immediately graced the silver haired-girl's lips at her glorious victory over the braided man and Aeris, again, was left to fume with his fatal mistake. And before he could overcome the embarrassment and whacked the girl with his staff, Sephiroth had already stridden into the village.

Swearing to himself, he would successfully hit Sephiroth on that pretty silver head even just once, the black-clad form of one male Aeris Gainsborough hurriedly sauntered after the evil girl.

(x)

It was then when they were standing in front of the clothes shop that it finally hit them. Despite the gil they collected during their short journey, they didn't have enough money to even buy a thong. Of course, things in Wutai were more expensive than in Midgar since Lord Godo was Yuffie Kisaragi's father and that spoke for itself a lot.

"…"

"…It seems we'll have to stay like this a little while longer." Aeris stated the obvious. "But come to think of it, it's not that bad, right? Since we're getting along and all."

"…" Sephiroth frowned deeply. Her delicate left hand reached for the hilt of the Masamune but Aeris knew better. Before the girl could unsheathe it and wreck havoc in this now peaceful village, he placed his strong hand on hers and grabbed it in an iron grip. His face was calm and smiling oh-so-friendlily, though.

"Sephy, darling." He crooned sweetly, squeezing the pale hand. "There's no need for tainting this second chance with slaughtering innocence lives, is there?" He squeezed the hand harder, earning a wince from the silver haired-girl.

"Is there?" He asked again in a gentler tone but his grip was so tight it was stopping the girl's blood circulation.

Sephiroth scowled at him, her lips curling into a straight line. In the end, she sighed, knowing Aeris was more than right. If she was granted a second chance, even if it was under a freaky condition, why wouldn't she make it a better one? In her past life, it was drenching with too much blood that it was so difficult to sleep without having a nightmare.

If satisfying this distasteful condition would make the nightmare stop, maybe…it was worth it.

"You're right." She said softly, closing her eyes.

Aeris was surprised at the other's unexpected response. Yet he couldn't help but smiled genuinely. Maybe Sephiroth wasn't really that evil.

"Now, will you let go of my hand already? If you haven't noticed, it's completely gone numb."

"Oops, sorry." Sheepishly grinned the brown haired-man, promptly letting go as he was told.

"Hn." Sephiroth snorted, flipping a silvery lock behind her ear. "So if that bloody option isn't available, what do you suggest?"

In fact, Sephiroth wasn't that open for a suggestion, especially if that suggestion was from a certain genderbent airhead Cetra; however, she was, not that she would admit it out loud, kind of grateful that the Cetra had warned her about living a better second life, so it was fair she listened to the other's opinion.

Aeris; however, giggled as that ingenious part in his brain that had once gotten one Cloud Strife into a memorable experience clicked.

"Well…" He said, grinning, pulling the girl closer and whispered the lovely message into her ear.

(x)

It was a while after Cloud's group had reached Wutai and contacted Yuffie about the matter (The ninja was very much happy about their visit and even happier with the latter news.) that they had begun the search for their resurrected friend.

Tifa; however, was still firm on her belief that Aeris was still as dead as a run over stabbed stray dog on a midnight street. Of course, sadly, no one believed her. They, excluding Cloud – since he was seriously focused about finding Aeris with his wonder antenna – thought she was jealous and tried to calm her down by having Yuffie guiding her to one of the best bars there.

And that, an hour later, was where she found two not-so-new pals, namely Reno and Rude, as drinking companions.

"Noooo oooone, nooo ooone hassshh undersshhtood me." Reno slurred, slamming his seventh glass on the counter. "I juussstt looove drinking but I'm nooo alcoholisssmmm."

"…………." Said Rude, empathically. Apparently he was the only sober one at the moment.

"Yesss." Slurred Tifa, downing another glass and slamming the empty vessel on the counter in mimic of Reno. "Nooo ooone undersshhtand usss." She then slammed a fist on the counter. "I'm not jealoussss! I just don't waaant them to be diss…disshappointed!"

"You aren't, Teef. They are s-shooo blinnnd." Said Reno, sniffing drunkenly.

"…………." Offered Rude, understandingly. He was still the only sober one at the moment.

"Yeah." Muttered Tifa, smiling drowsily as the alcohols finally took its effect. "Aerisss ishh my friend…e-even if thee wassshh deaaddd. Shtuupid Cloooud and his shtuupiid antennaaa."

"To hell withCloud and his stupid antenna!" Reno yelled clearly at the top of his lungs, throwing a fist into the air…before slumping back limply into his small chair.

"…………." Agreed Rude, wordlessly. He wasn't sure if he was still sober at the moment.

To be continued…