A thin crack in the wall provided just enough light to temporarily blind Cloud as he awoke to an empty room. The stench of all that is rotten still hung heavily in the air. He arose and looked around in the now lit room. The table beside him was covered with bodily waste, secretions and blood, with clumps of long brown hair wedged between splinters of wood and more blood around four metal clasps which were placed at the four corners of the table.

"She's gone." He said to himself, dying inside for letting that repulsive man get away with her.

He had her, she was in his hands and he let her slip away. There was so much he could have done to save her, but he did nothing, he kissed her and let a murderer get the jump on him. He felt so weak, so powerless, he saved the world goddammit, but he couldn't save his girlfriend? "Girlfriend", he thought to himself, he wished he could call her that again, hoping he wasn't too late. "Girlfriend", he thought to himself, perhaps even wife. Again he had failed her. How many times could a single person fail someone?

He walked over to the door leading up to the rest of the house but stopped at the base of the staircase. He squatted next to the body of his fallen comrade, his eyes still open with the fear and knowledge of impending death. Cloud reached out and gently closed the man's eyes then stood up and looked for a sheet upstairs. He placed the sheet over Cid's body and called the police. After the phone call he sat down on an old car outside and waited for the police. Thank God for cell phones, he thought, and then had an epiphany.

The police would blame him for this. He would go back to prison and he would never find Tifa. He had seen the night before what the man was doing to her and knew she didn't have much time left. At the thought of this a tear ran down his cheek. He wanted to kill himself for letting this happen. Last night, he could have stood up and stopped the man, but instead he just sat there. True he wanted an element of surprise, but watched the man beat Tifa. He could never forgive himself for that. Why had he just sat there? He could find no reason other than the fact that he wanted to get Tifa out without a confrontation, knowing that any sort of encounter could result in unfavorable consequences, which was proven.

The glare from the sun reflecting in the headlight of a squad car caught Cloud's eyes and he prepared himself for an arrest. The policeman, the same one who had arrested him prior, exited the car and walked up to him, a conceded look on his face. Cloud rolled his eyes and stood up to greet the man, who in turn pulled a gun on him and ordered him to stay back.

"Look, there's a dangerous criminal on the loose with my girlfriend and who just killed one of my best friends so I suggest you don't waste your time by trying to convict me and instead focus on catching the real asshole." Cloud said with his arms pointed to the heavens in surrender. The cop deciphered his words for a moment then slowly lowered his gun and followed Cloud into the basement where the pilot lay. The deputy called for back up and told Cloud to get lost and to find his girlfriend. The spiky haired man could have kissed him but ran instead away from Midgar and off to figure out where Tifa and her kidnapper were.

The sun had nearly set when he returned to Kalm, the orange orb hidden partially by the surrounding mountains; with purple lines of clouds stretching from either side and darkening the yellow and pink sky. Cloud sat on the roof of Tifa's bar and contemplated his next move. He thought about Cid though, and what he would tell Shera, how he would tell her. Or perhaps the police already had. No, because she would have called in distress.

He looked up towards the sky, asking for guidance, needing his whole team there with him. Aeris and Cid were dead, and Tifa was missing, it seemed as though the group was falling apart. Yuffie was in Wutai training heavily, as she had been since the Highwind dropper her off from the Northern Crater. No one had seen or heard from Vincent save Cid, who had seen him leaving Lucrecia's Falls just a few months earlier. The vampirical man had lifted his head at the sound of the Highwind and watched it fly off into the distance, but never made any attempt to contact anyone. Barret was in charge of rebuilding Correl and had no time for another adventure. Reeve was retired, had taken all the money in his bank account and moved to Junon, where he lived peacefully trying to build a real life for himself, though he was known to have kept Cait Sith in his closet for old memories. Red was studying his grandfather's work and the Turks had started their own organization. No one could help him. He was completely alone.

He stood up and looked out towards the mountains to the South. The wind had picked up out of the eastern sea breeze and had molded his spikes into a horizontal fashion. He gazed to the south with a confused yet determined look in his eyes. He would find Tifa and avenge Cid.

Tifa couldn't have gone far. They had a day's head start but still they could only travel south due to a lack of passage through the mountains. The car had been taken from Midgar and must still be their main mode of transportation.

He still wished he had done something. Prevented Cid's death, or even Tifa's kidnapping. He couldn't give up on her and jumped to the ground, two stories below him, with one knee and fist on the ground. He looked up at the center of the town with his eyebrows pointed towards his nose. He would right his wrong and took off towards the Chocobo Ranch.

He arrived at the family business just a few hours later. He bid for his golden chocobo to be brought to him and set off for his love. Neither Choco Billy nor his sister questioned the hero, learning long ago that asking questions was futile when Cloud seemed to be on a mission.

Cloud and his chocobo raced south faster than they ever had in any race at the Gold Saucer. They crossed the mountains and rivers with the greatest of ease for days until they came to a forest path late one afternoon. Frustrated that he could not find the kidnapper or any sign of Tifa, he tied his chocobo up for the night and settled down and built a warm fire for the night. Try as he might, he could not go on forever without sleep, nor could his faithful feathered steed. He soon fell into a deep and fitful night sleep, still cursing himself for his weaknesses.

- - - - -

The large, black man tapped his pencil lightly against the document that sat before him. The words had blurred together hours ago and though he knew he needed to read and sign it, he could only stare blankly at it while his secretary had run in and out with more paperwork to fill out. The work kept piling up, permits, land deeds, bids and other legal documents were stacked up on his desk like fortress walls, blocking him from the outside world. He had already chewed one pencil into oblivion and concentrated on this one with the same look in his eyes as he had pierced the first one with.

He could hear the door open softly and saw from over his stack of papers the forehead of the young blonde woman walking over to his desk with yet another cream colored folder and place it on the mountain before him. As the door closed his gaze shifted to the gun grafted to his right arm. There his stare remained until his eyes watered from a lack of blinking. He closed them softly and let them dry, recalling the news report he had seen the previous night.

His dearest friend had been kidnapped, beaten, raped and possibly killed. His old comrade was killed trying to save her and the spiky headed fellow who had spearheaded their campaign to save the planet had disappeared. He felt helpless in his current state. He could not leave his city without someone in charge but he couldn't sit idly by while his friends were dying. He sighed deeply and reached for the office phone on his desk. He spoke as calmly as he could to the man on the other side.

"Reeve?" Barret asked, still holding a grudge against the Shinra executive for his deception during the Sephiroth war. The man on the other end of the phone was taken aback and nearly fell out of his chair at the sound of the black man's voice.

"Barret? Never in a million years did I think you would ever call me." Reeve responded, still in shock. "Did you hear about Tifa? And Cid?" he waited for a response. "What are we going to do? Yes…All right, count me in. I'll meet you in Corel tomorrow."

Reeve hung up the phone and sat back in his chair, breathing a sigh of disbelief and running his fingers through his hair. He had always wondered what his old teammates were doing and whether they ignored contacting him or if they had just forgotten. He had wanted to rebuild himself as their friend, not a traitor.

- - - - -

Wutai hadn't changed much since the threat of Meteor. The only real change was the school that opened in Godo's temple. It was a small school with only five classrooms, one on each floor of the pagoda, but it attracted all of the town's aspiring ninja's. While classes were held on the weekdays, practice matches were held on the weekends, and as one would have guessed, Yuffie was the person to beat in such competitions.

"Good match!" the cheerful young ninja chanted while bowing to her opponent. "Next!" she cried for a new challenger. She had practiced religiously since she had returned from the Northern Crater oh so long ago and had attended the school that was opened. As much as she enjoyed showing off her talents as a fighter, she grew bored with each training ninja, longing for a fight she would actually have to work at in order to win.

Her sense of pride and selfishness had not deteriorated since she returned from battling Sephiroth. Rather, she had become more conceited with her newfound fame and fortune. She hadn't bothered to make friends while at school, instead driving them away with her stories of grandeur. There was one person that she cared to talk to in her classes, but he would never fight her, and that angered her. The fact that she couldn't control everyone she met still enraged her.

Her trainer had left the room a few minutes earlier to answer a phone call, missing her latest victory and returned with the phone to hand to the teenager. She graciously accepted and was astonished to hear the voice that had once controlled Cait Sith on the other line.

"Reeve!" she screamed, clutching the phone and jumping in the air. "What? He is? When? Oh My God! Sure of course I'll come. See you soon."

She hung up the phone slowly and paused for a moment. It seemed like only yesterday the entire group was just parting ways and saying their goodbyes. She thought that maybe the phone call would be about plans for a reunion, but after hearing Reeve's voice she knew that it couldn't be a party. Reeve was still on the outside of the group, trying to make up for his deception. She couldn't believe that Cid…a man she had once looked up to as a father figure, though she would never admit it, was dead.

Tears began to cling to her eyes and threaten for fall as she turned and ran to her house to begin packing her bags. One small suitcase for clothes, and another, larger one, for the materia she had collected (stolen, rather) since her last mission.

- - - - -

The mountains remained a peaceful haven for the man with the red eyes. He often sat above Lucrecia's waterfall and pondered life. He crouched down with his cape blowing in the wind and his chin resting on his fist, his other hand on the mountaintop for support, reminiscing of his dark and secretive past. Brooding over the transgressions that had haunted him since his days as a Turk and the events leading up to his imprisonment in the basement of Nibelheim's Mansion.

A sixth sense had plagued him his entire life, a certain, uncanny ability to determine a situation's execution, a knowledge of something to come. He had felt the presence of evil some weeks prior and had known that something had happened to his old allies. It was a nagging voice inside him, telling him that something was wrong, that convinced him to seek out the gun-armed man in Corel.

For weeks he had had visions of terrible tragedies overtaking Avalanche. Death, kidnapping and grief clouded his vision as he sat atop Lucrecia's grave, the place he had made his home since he walked away from the Highwind without saying goodbye. He had seen Cid pass over in his airship, but never bothered the old team with his gloomy presence. He could fight along side them since he didn't need to speak, but trying to hold a conversation with say, Yuffie, proved difficult, and everyone else seemed to have their own things going on in their lives, and no time to try and make him talk.

His prophecies were correct, as he had imagined, and agreed to help in times of trouble again, as he had one year ago fought beside Cloud and Cid in the fight against Sephiroth. Though he did wish to be reunited with the former team under much more pleasant circumstances, he was, surprisingly, glad to feel like he belonged somewhere again.

- - - - -

Nanaki had been reading one of his grandfather's books when the call came. It was nothing he could have ever imagined. Cid: dead, Tifa: kidnapped and Cloud: gone. His friends were in trouble and he was called forth to help them. The past year had seen him many trips into the cave of the GI, where the great Seto stood petrified forever. He had visited his father numerous times during his research, for advice, for comfort. Today he did so for admonition, asking his fallen father for protection and guidance during the months ahead.

He had set off from the Canyon and ran as fast as he could to the spot where Barret had designated their meeting. His inability to ride a chocobo made his trip longer than everyone else's but nevertheless he arrived.

"Everyone here?" Barret asked, looking at the faces of his old comrades. "Its like old times in't it? Cept we missin' a few." He bowed his head in prayer, and then looked up a with fierceness in his eyes that had never been seen before. "Let's go get 'em back!"

The group cheered and mounted their chocobos, with Red running along side them. They tracked Cloud down to a forest path by means of his old PHS, which was still in commission. He had been startled when they arrived on several chocobos, nearly sneaking up on him while he rested. If it had been up to him he would not rest until Tifa was found, but his chocobo was not as determined as he, and needed to stop for food and water.

"What are you guys doing here?" Cloud asked as he stood up from beneath a tree he had been resting against, brushing himself off.

"We came to help you, and Teef." Barret answered, rubbing the back of his neck. Cloud nodded in appreciation and walked over to his chocobo.

He placed the reins over his chocobo's neck and mounted her. The others did the same and together they headed south. It felt like old times, with most of the team together, but this time they were on a rescue mission, not a hunt for Sephiroth. They couldn't imagine the man they were after could be more powerful than the great Sephiroth, but they would be sure not to underestimate this foe, he had already proven himself a worthy adversary by managing to kidnap Tifa Lockhart.

- - - - -

The scenery faded together like an oil painting as it blurred by her on either side. Rain streamed down the windows and she could hear the distant sounds of thunder after a flash of lightning. Had she not been sitting down she would have felt nauseous. Mountains lined both sides of the unpaved road like walls closing in on her. It felt good to be out of the basement, but she also knew that with each passing moment she was brought further and further from her freedom…and Cloud.

Day turned into night and night turned back into day and with the setting of the sun, the torturer was given the cover he needed. She learned to fear the sunset as a beacon of evil, foreshadowing the sinister plan of a sick and twisted mind. She felt like Pavlov's experiment had been taken over by the devil.

Cid was dead. She had watched him die and was powerless to stop it. She was strapped to the table with broken wrists and ankles, helpless. Cloud had been there too. She hadn't seen him but she knew that the man who had touched her so gently and kissed her so tenderly was him. He had not seen her injuries, or her cadaverous form wallowing in dirt and grime because it had been night.

She had seen her freedom, reached out and touched it, embraced it, and then watched it slowly slip away from her grasp in an instant of death. Cloud had been beaten nearly to death and she didn't know if he had pulled through. She saw the fight and watched as her hero slumped to the ground after a valiant effort. She wished that he had saved her, been able to pull off the great escape, but she loved him even more for trying. She only wished that she could tell him how much she loved him and how much she appreciated his efforts.

Her life had been short but full of tragedy. She would never forget the sound of Sephiroth's blade slicing into her and killing her father and Aeris. She would never forget the sound of a bridge collapsing as she plummeted from Mt. Nibel, or when Cloud fell from the upper plate. She would never forget when that same upper plate obliterated Biggs, Wedge and Jessie. She would never forget the sound of broken bones and flesh, or the gunshot that had slain her former pilot.

Eyes were the hardest things to forget; the look of shear acceptance in a person's eyes right before they died. The look in Aeris' eyes after Sephiroth had removed his sword from her; in that moment before her soul had left her body; it was a look of every emotion fused together. Of happiness, sadness, anger and fear, all rolled up into one expression. She had seen that same expression on Cid before he slumped to the ground in a pool of blood. It was a look that would haunt her for the rest of her days, which although she felt she hadn't much time left, seemed to drag on in torture. It may have been dark in the basement, but the whites of Cid's eyes stood out like headlights to a deer.

Perhaps in that brief instant before death was a moment of ecstasy. Perhaps in that moment was the reflection of life, a thousand memories flashing before one's eyes. Perhaps a final confrontation between heaven, hell and earth.

Tifa leaned her head against the backseat window of the car and watched as the rain fell hard against the glass. She could feel the abrupt stop of the car as its tires screeched across the dirt and came to direct halt. The driver turned around and glared at her with a vengeance.

"Don't you EVER, lift your head up, ya hear?" He snarled, taking a long lead pipe and striking her once across the leg. She brought her arms up over her head and buried her face in the car seat. "Don't look out the window, don't move, don't make a sound, just DON'T do ANYTHING!" He yelled, beating her once more. He dropped the pipe and resumed driving, looking around to make sure that other driver's weren't suspicious of his actions. He drove as calmly as he could, with a look of nervousness plastered across his face and constantly looking over his shoulder and out of the corner of his eye's to see if he was being followed.

Tifa rested her head on the seat and looked at the roof of the car. The gloomy gray sky had begun to turn orange as the sun fell. Her body tensed, knowing what time it was.

When Cloud had hit the floor she had felt as if her life was over. She thought that the man would kill her then and there, as he unclasped her. She wanted to attack him, to run away but her limbs wouldn't cooperate. He scooped her frail form up off the table and placed her over his shoulder. He walked through Midgar with her shivering on his back in the middle of the night. The air had cooled considerably and when she shivered, he smacked her bottom as hard as he could, jerking her and making her scream with each devastating blow.

She was a strong-willed woman and he knew that. That, along with more obvious reasons, was why he picked her for his next victim. He had fallen in love with her body during the big media hype following the near destruction of the planet. She was a hero, and men across the world were talking about how much they wanted to sleep with her, but none of them would follow up on their crushes, except for him.

He would be the one to do it. He would be the one to bag Tifa Lockheart. His mind was made up and he knew what he wanted. He wanted her, in every unholy way possible. He wanted her to need him, as he felt he needed her. He wanted to hold her life in the palm of his hand and have the power to crush it if he so chose.

He didn't think that she would last so long. He felt a few weeks tops would do her in and then he could move on to the next woman. He never knew that she would be able to live under such conditions for so long. Most of the other women he had tortured had died within a couple weeks, but Tifa, whether it be a blessing or a curse, was still alive after over a month.

He didn't know what to do. He was getting really sketched out about having her around and feared that this Cloud character was catching up to him. The blonde-haired man had saved the world, defeated the great Sephiroth, there was no telling what such a man could do to him, especially when a woman was involved.

He didn't want to kill her; she was so beautiful, even now, with her battered and broken body. He had explored all his fantasies with her, but would keep her until she died, then dispose of the body. He still figured she would last another week or two, but how he was going to keep her hidden was another problem.

The gears in his head were turning that night as he fought desperately for an idea to keep her in his possession. The torture he instilled upon her that night was the same as he had the past few nights on the road, he would beat her for hours at a time, then sit atop her and punch her over and over. Finally he would tie a rope around her neck, and the other end to his wrist, and he would fall asleep on the front seat.

The moon finally made way for the sun when he would wake up. The rain had finally ended with the passing of the sun, but it didn't put her attacker in any better of a mood. He'd start the car and drive as far as he could until nightfall, planning his next move on her. He had left her in chains at his old house, and made her sit in the back seat leaning low so as not to be seen. He felt that if her wrists and ankles were broken she would be less inclined to try and leave to find help or run away. He also knew that in her weakened state she would be unable to open the car door.

There was a pencil and an old, crumpled piece of paper on the floor beneath her, which she had stared at for the past three hours. Finally she leaned her head over the seat and grabbed the pencil with her teeth, and used both arms to bring the paper up on to the cushion with her. She gripped the pencil in her mouth and tried as best she could to scribble on the paper. Then with an amazing display of acrobatics she managed to push the paper up against a window for any passing car to see.

He had been driving for quite awhile without hearing so much as a peep from her and wondered what was going on. He thought she had finally died and looked in his rearview mirror to find her holding the paper up to the window. He immediately stepped on the brakes and swerved the car onto the side of the road, pulling a 180. There were no other cars on the desolate road but from her depth there was no way to tell, but still for her insubordination she deserved to be punished.

She dropped the paper and prayed for a miracle; anything to stop him in his tracks, but received nothing but another installment of her punishment. He had brought a knife with him, razor thin to a point from a recent sharpening, and held it up to the side of her face, cutting her cheek lightly with its edge. He then slid the knife along her skin, being careful not to cut her, until it hovered over her gut. With his free hand he played with her belly button, lightly petting it and even kissing it gently. Then with a swift swipe a chunk of her flesh was gone, only a fountain of blood in its place.

"This is the end." She said to herself as she watched the blood gush from her torso.

She would bleed to death, right here, right now. But suddenly she saw something snap inside of him, a devilish grin spread across his face and she knew something far more sinister was to transpire. He took a towel out of the glove compartment and pressed it into stomach to stop the bleeding. After some sort of God-given miracle the bleeding subsided, and he wrapped a bandage around her midriff. Silently he returned to his seat up front and drove the car away as if nothing had happened. It may not have been much, but Tifa was glad to have some sort of covering on her body, if only he could have gotten it by simpler means.

The stars were out that night, scattered across the heavens like a bag of spilled marbles, twinkling in transcendent tranquility. The car was parked on the edge of a cliff overlooking a valley. A valley filled with flowers and a peaceful air made Tifa want to leap from the car and take her chances at escaping, but she remained motionless and emotionless as he pummeled her.

But there was something different about the way he hit her tonight, the violence that was once so prominent was gone, and when he finally finished she realized that he had only beaten the seat cushion around her, and in her weakened condition thought that she had just lost total feeling of her body. He opened the car door and sat on the ground beside her head. She looked around, trying to anticipate his next move but she had learned long ago that he was unpredictable.

He sat beside her, playing with the grass at his feet and looking out into the open air with a renewed sense of self. It was as if the valley were calling to him, he felt as though he could tell it anything, like he could open up to it.

"You know how I was raised?" He asked the ghastly thin woman on the seat next to him. She rolled over and looked at him with a confused and terrified looked on her face, with the reflection of the moon dancing in her chocolate eyes. He didn't look at her though; just kept his back to her and continued speaking to the valley. "My father raised me to be a man," he said with an accent on 'man'. "He taught me the ways of the old. Taught me that women were nothing but a nuisance, taught me to hate them and told me that their only purpose was to give birth to my children." Tifa winced at what he had just said. "I wish I weren't like this, ya know." He added, "I wish I could settle down with a nice girl, someone who would take care of me, someone…like you." He said and turned to look into her horrified eyes.

He pushed the front seats forward and squeezed himself onto the floor space behind them. He placed an arm across her stomach and rested his head on her chest, falling asleep peacefully for the first time in years.

Tifa didn't know what to think. She didn't know if he had turned around or was just pretending. She wondered if he would free her, or if he would stop beating her, but in her head she knew that he couldn't change so quickly and easily from a villain to a saint.

She dared not stir him though she was uncomfortable and fell asleep along with him, dreaming of a time when everyone was together, not just when Cid was alive, but when Aeris was too. She could see everyone at Nibelheim, gathered around the well that she and Cloud had played on when they were young. She was serving drinks at a big party, but there was no music and though everyone's mouths were moving, no words or sounds came out. She climbed to the top of the well and leaned back on her hands, looking up into the dark blue sky filled with stars. The moon lit up her skin like a sandy beach, and her perfect figure was outlined in its light wonderfully. She blinked and smiled with such content that she failed to realize that the party had dispersed.

When she looked down to see how everyone was doing she saw only flames. The whole town was in flames, just as it had been before when Sephiroth had burned it to the ground. She screamed and screamed for Cloud and the others but still no words would form on her lips. Then from out of the flames a figure emerged. Not that of Sephiroth, but instead of the man who had kidnapped her. The same glowing eyes of hell glared at her and pushed her off of the well and into the flames, when she finally woke up.

She awoke to find the car moving, with her kidnapper in the front seat driving as if the night prior had not happened. It was mid afternoon and all she could see were the blurred streaks of a tree-lined road. The flames were an omen, a black cat in her path, the ever-present reminder that her day would come, that death was eminent. She only prayed that she would have one last chance to see her friends before she slipped into the next world.

He stopped for a moment to smoke a cigarette, something she had not seen him do since he had taken her. He sat beneath a great oak, with his back leaning against its bark, the cigarette held limply between his thumb and index finger. His elbows rested on his bent knees and he slowly looked up at her, with the deathly stare from her dream. She inched her way towards the opposite car door but could not escape. He yelled and lunged at her with the cigarette, pressing it into her chest, right in the middle of Sephiroth's scar.

"Bitch! I hate you mother!" He yelled as he twisted the burning stick of tobacco harder and harder into her skin. She screeched and tried to fight him off but he was too strong and she was too weak. "Why'd you leave me?" He screamed over and over again until his voice gave out. He slipped off of her and onto the earth outside the car, with tears streaming down his cheeks.

Her skin black and steaming, Tifa turned over and tried to calm him down, cooing to him several times and speaking very softly. Why she helped him she couldn't understand, but she felt that perhaps if she did, he would let her go. Her voice was not strong, but her gasping whispers seemed to sooth his nerves and allow him peace, she only hoped that it would last.