When Heart Rules Over Mind

Two down, One to go

Johnny settled in his position beside the lifeless woman's body he previously loved. She was barely a used up item now, one that he had used to get what he wanted – Vincent.

That'll teach the lying bitch for letting those bastards screw her. He thought with anger. After all, she had been doing it for months; about time he got his own back. Though not even he would have degraded himself to this level, not without another purpose…

And Dylon had offered him his prize:

The downfall of Cloud Strife.

With that world famous narcissist out of the picture, plus getting rid of that bitch Ella, Johnny left the path clear for him and Tifa. She'd always pushed him away when he was younger, and ever since. All because of Strife.

He knew it was a long-shot, but he was getting desperate by now. Tifa was, and always had been his life.

Bringing his mind back to the task at hand, Johnny carefully began to sit himself up, moving back slowly to an upright position, away from the pretence of caring for the dead woman lying before him.

Her short, dark chestnut hair was cast roughly over her innocent face. Her blushed eyelids hung low, shutting away the trademark brown eyes that belonged only to her. They had once been the eyes that greeted all patrons into Costa, with her flirtatious beckoning that she waved from the high window of the bar near the entrance to the Resort.

Now she was degraded. Lying on the rough, torn earth beneath her. Her autumn red dress was ripped at the hem, and torn in places leaving her skin exposed to injury and dirt – of which both covered her. Her bare legs were scratched, and bleeding from the creatures' toying with her, and from the harsh dragging of her body over the earth from the man she had thought and cared so much about.

Unknown to him she had never so much as touched anyone else. Not even the childhood sweetheart she had always held so fond in her heart. No, she let that go for Johnny, all the while ignoring the fact that the man had always agonised over Tifa Lockheart.

The worst thing for Ella, was the knowledge that this woman was spending each day with the man she wanted so dearly. Yet she knew she would never see him again. She had made her bed, and had to lie in it. Her punishment was spending each day with an empty lover who never saw her face once when he closed his eyes at night, making love to her as she saw it, and fucking her, as he would have thought of it.

All that had ceased now.

The girl had been laid to rest.

Though it had been by foreign hands she no longer welcomed to touch her.

She had agreed once more to walk with him, hearing his promises of trying harder, she swallowed her selfish anger and gave him another chance. Just at that point was where she felt the sudden crack to the back of her head. She was down in a heartbeat, her face in the grass. It didn't take him long to smother her.

She had succumb to the darkness at least a minute before he had lifted her head to check his task was finished with.

Johnny's eyes blazed.

He observed the spawn of SHINRA before him as the thing howled, turning gruesomely into a midnight creature that stained the air with the stench of Hojo.

Clamping his eyes directly on the beast, Johnny reached into his pocket, his eyes unfaltering and unblinking. He removed a small dart gun, and carefully rested the long, lower handle of it on the mid-rift of the body before him. Holding it steady, he inserted the designated dart into it, and clicked it into place. All the while, the beast was making too much noise for him to be detected, the Marlboro's kept at bay in momentary fear.

As Vincent breathed air into the foreign lungs long forgotten, his breath was cut short.

Letting an instinctive howl, the Chaos beast found itseld unwillingly sheathed in a drug induced state.

Johnny raised himself into a sitting position once more, replacing the instrument of his triumph back into his pocket.

Flipping his PHS open, he placed it to his ear waiting for the drone to be answered. "It's done". He stated with a satisfied grin before clicking it shut. He observed the fallen beast as it lay breathing huskilly to itself.

Turning on his heel, Johnny briskly left the scene for reinforcements to clean up when they were sent in by his employer.

Fairytale endings were at a stop once again, as in this world, evil prevailed over good – almost always.

Cloud ripped Tifa's door open and tore up the staircase like a man posessed. Bursting through her apartment doorway, he ground to a hault, meeting with the faces of a room full of armed men.

"…What…the hell is this?…Where's Tifa!" Cloud demanded in between panting breaths, his angry eyes darting from one man to the next.

Until one man stepped forward.

"All these years and you just burst in when I'm least expecting it." Dylon looked around at his men, all silently masked in uniform, gun upon loaded gun held poised to Cloud's face. "Well, maybe not so unexpected after all. I knew

Cloud eyes the man darkly. Who was this guy? Whoever it was, he had Miguel's voice, but Cloud never remembered seeing this guy before. Come to think of it, Cloud had only ever seen Miguel…not heard him.

It finally dawned on Cloud that this guy had misled him. He could have killed the man, if it wasn't for the fact he wanted to kill himself more for being so stupid. That, and the small matter of a dozen guns loaded in his face.

"So Strife, we see each other at last it seems. You have been so hard to get to, what with all the fame and all. Makes you sick, doesn't it? A runt making it all the way to tha top?" The stranger sneered with an empty laugh.

"Who the hell are you? And what have you done with her?"

"Her?" Dylon looked genuinly confused for a moment, thought he soon smiled. "Oh, you mean poor Tifa? Oh, I haven't done anything to her – yet. At this current moment she is about to run into trouble all by herself. Which reminds me, I am missing all the fun." With that, Dylon ran a hand through his short jet black hair and glared at Cloud with a sly look in his eyes.

The eyes that locked on Cloud's in that single moment matching the intensity of his gaze.

Mako.

"Thank you for beign so kind as to remind me of my meeting with Ms. Lockheart Cloud. I might have missed it…" He stated, putting Cloud under the false illusion that whatever happened to Tifa now would be as a result of Cloud's slip up. Though obviously that wasn't the case. Dylon had been keeping a cool head throughout, everything timed to the second, even that idiot Johnny had completed on task.

Cloud kicked himself mentally for the second time already. The fate of Tifa was at stake, and he had to come running in here all so-called heroically. He hadn't even informed Vincent. Which would have been a damn good idea thinking back on it now.

Dylon stepped forward, closer to Cloud, tempting him to make the one move towards him that would warrant his men to shoot. Cloud gritted his teeth and stared into the stranger's haunting mako eyes.

"Seize him."

Cloud didn't get a second to react before two pairs of hands were clamped on each one of his arms, twisting them painfully behind his back, forcing his wrists together at which point cuffs were wound open and clicked down.

"Get off me! Let go!" Cloud shouted, his head frantically looking over his shoulder to desperately see if there was any minute chance of breaking free. There wasn't.

"Honestly Strife. Even you should know there's no getting out of this one. Take him to the docks and lock him in the cargo hold."

Cloud could only watch as the stranger walked out of the room, leaving him with armed, capable and well trained men. As they began to lead him off, tough palms clamped on his arms pulling him forwards, numerous barrels wedged into his back sharply with every step – a constant reminder that one false move and…

But that wasn't half of it.

The fear in Cloud Strife's heart was that of one other person. The person he was here for, had come all this way throughout his life because of. The last thought was of her, her face when he had seen her that day on the beach, the picturesque vision of her that felt real at long last when he held her again.

For the last time it seemed now.

A cloth hood was thrust over his head when they reached the door, and within a few steps around the back of the establishment, he was disposed of discreetly, slamming down hard against the wall of a benched van. His holders followed inside, some retreating to slam and lock the back doors shut, and go to their own vehicles.

Sooner or later they were moving. And Cloud's eyes darted frantically in the dark of the material covering his head, like a frightened cat. He could only pray Tifa was smart enough to stay safe.

And that his mistake hadn't cost her her life.

Authior's Note's:

This was a long time updating because I've been snowed under with college work. Scary stuff I can tell you. But anyway, here is another chapter for you guys. Reviews have been laying a little thin, and I don't doubt that's because of my lack of updating, and I apologise so much for that. I'll try keep on top of this, because sooner or later I'm going to be hit with a writer's block and I'm dreading it I can tell you! Anyway thank you to all those who took the time to read this, and it would mean the world to me to finally hear reviews to persuade me to carry on with this thing.

Xx Jessie xX