"So, what's our plan?" Cid asks in the morning. He's holding a cup of coffee out to Tifa as she blearily steps into the main cabin. The others sit around a table, sharing rations for breakfast.
Barret wants to head to Kalm to see Marlene.
"She must be terrified with everything goin' on," he says. "I gotta see her!"
But Cid disagrees. Shinra will want their precious airship back, and the last thing they should do is lead the way to any family members.
"Is Shinra onto us?" Tifa asks.
"Not yet," Cid responds. "We disabled any internal tracking, but it's only a matter of time."
"Can we trust this crew?" Barret says.
Yes, Cid would put his life in their hands. Everyone is from Rocket Town. The airship has been running on minimal staff since marooning any company loyalists in Junon, though Barret remains suspicious.
"We need to locate Aerith," Nanaki says. "Maybe we can communicate with her through the Lifestream."
"How?" Yuffie asks. "Isn't that stuff poisonous to the living?"
Yes, prolonged exposure is lethal, but there are rumored to be places where the Lifestream bubbles to the surface in diluted quantities. These springs allow communion with the dead, or so it is said. If Aerith is trapped at the north crater, surrounded by the Lifestream, they may be able to convey a message to her.
"Assuming she is trapped," Barret says. "For all we know, she caused that barrier."
Tifa doesn't think so. Sephiroth was there, too. They'd all seen him encased in materia.
"Awright. We gotta figure this thing out," Barret says. "Let's get our facts together. What do we know?"
Jenova is an ancient extraterrestrial entity, which crashed to the earth centuries ago. It caused some virus that drove the Cetra insane. The Cetra defeated Jenova and sealed it underground, where it lay dormant until Shinra dug it up. Professor Gast mistook Jenova for a fossilized Cetra, and Shinra launched the Jenova Project, experimenting with the alien cells.
Gast realized his error and withdrew from the Project, which continued under Hojo, and Shinra moved Jenova's body to the Nibel Reactor. Hojo had an intimate relationship with a fellow scientist on the Project, Lucrecia, and when she got pregnant, she agreed to incorporate their unborn child into the experiments. Thus, Sephiroth was born.
But Gast had something Hojo wanted. A Cetra descendant named Ifalna. Gast fell in love with her, and together they bore a daughter, Aerith. Hojo tracked down Gast and killed him, stealing Ifalna and her newborn. It's unknown what Hojo did to Ifalna or Aerith, but the two escaped, and Elmyra discovered them at the train station in Midgar. Ifalna died of wounds, exhaustion, experimentation, who knows. Aerith was untouched, and Elmyra raised the girl as her own.
Yes, everyone agrees on these facts.
"Okay...so, then the incident at Nibelheim happened," Barret goes on.
Sephiroth discovered he was part of these experiments and insisted that his true mother was Jenova. He burnt down the village, decapitated the body of Jenova in the Reactor, and Cloud may or may not have killed him. Either way, the General was never seen again.
When Barret mentions Cloud's name, an uncomfortable stillness pervades the room. He hurries on. They can address that clusterfuck of a question later.
Shinra moved Jenova to Midgar. Five years later, Shinra imprisoned Tifa and Barret in the Tower, and Jenova broke free. Knowing now that it can mimic anything, Barret thinks it's pretty clear that Jenova assumed Sephiroth's form.
"But why did it wake? Why then?" Nanaki asks the group.
Tifa ponders. "Maybe Sephiroth convinced it to awaken. Professor Hojo did say something about the cells being linked… A reunion theory…"
Another unspoken shiver goes through them. The timing of Cloud waking from his coma suspiciously coincides, as well.
"And Aerith was there, too. At the Tower," Tifa remembers. "She'd told us how Cloud rescued her when we first met at Seventh Heaven."
Could Aerith's presence have sparked Jenova's rampage? Or attracted Sephiroth's sudden interest?
Cid picks up the tale. "So you've all been chasing Jenova, a lookalike human, around the globe, which led to that temple where that Black Materia was kept. Cloud somehow retrieved it, and Aerith disappeared."
But when they got to the northern crater, where Aerith supposedly went, they only found Jenova—living, writhing—and the body of Sephiroth.
"And that's when Cloud lost his shit," Barret says.
That's putting it mildly. Tifa doesn't even understand how she became separated from Cloud. She was right next to him, and then…
"Then he gave the Black Materia to Sephiroth," Yuffie says. "And caused all this."
It doesn't seem fair to blame Cloud, but nobody denies it. There is silence. Cid taps his finger on the table.
"What about Vincent?" Tifa says, shifting the conversation. "Has anyone been able to locate him?"
"Nah," Barret says. "But that man had his own agenda anyways. I doubt we seen the last of him, what with that supernatural ability of his."
Another parting gift from Hojo. It makes Tifa cringe. She'll kill Hojo herself with all the mayhem that single man has caused.
Silence again. It stretches into awkwardness.
"So, are we gonna talk about it?" Yuffie says. "About Cloud..."
"Look, he was a nice guy and all," Cid starts. "But none of you told me he literally came out of a goddamn Shinra lab. I coulda told you he was two threads short of breaking."
"But that shouldn't matter," Nanaki says. "We all knew Cloud."
"Did we?" Barret grumbles, recalling the sword at his neck when Cloud took back the Black Materia. "How we know he wasn't under Jenova's influence the whole damn time?"
Everyone thinks. The trek to Junon, the cargo ship, chasing into Corel, then obsessing over the Black Materia. The ancient temple crumbling, and Cloud never speaking of what happened within. Barret recalls the fear in Cloud's voice afterwards, when the blonde had hung his head and said he thought he was losing his mind. The writing was all over the walls, and none of them wanted to pay it any attention.
It was Cloud that wanted to go north. It was Cloud that brought the Materia to Sephiroth. It was Cloud that did nothing as Hojo told Rufus Shinra the origins of the dead MP in Nibelheim.
"Whatchu think, Tifa? You been awfully quiet," Barret says.
All eyes turn to her. She's been dreading this moment. Her stomach quivers into a knot. She gulps her coffee.
"Well. He isn't human," she hears herself say. It sounds cold, insufficient to answer the gaping question, the hole in her heart.
Everyone expects her to say more, but she doesn't.
Yuffie chimes in. "But if he looks human and sounds human...then, isn't he human? I mean, aren't all of us just looking human and sounding human, after all?"
"But he ain't," Barret says, backing Tifa up. "His cells are jes' mimicking humanity."
"To what purpose?" Nanaki says. "I don't think Cloud had any idea he was—he is—an imposter."
Cid snaps his lighter open, playing with it in his hands. "Do we think he's dead?"
"No," Tifa says a little too suddenly. Then she gathers her hands. They are shaking. The way he'd look at her across the broken upper tier… She should warn them of his status, but she finds she cannot say more. Not right now.
Yuffie puts a hand on her shoulder. "It's okay, Tifa. We'll find him. We'll get him back." Then she glares at Barret and Cid. "Even if he isn't technically human, he's still our pal. And who cares what he's made of as long as he's on our side."
Cid shrugs. "Maybe he's in the northern crater with Aerith."
"And Sephiroth," Barret says. "Don't forget that guy's still the villain. Looked to me like he's the one summoned that damn meteor."
"Which Cloud gave him…" Cid groans, lighting up a smoke. "Thought that was the exact opposite of what he'd wanted to do with it."
The conversation goes in circles. Nobody can agree on what Cloud is or what defines a human, or why the hell he gave over the Black Materia. Only one thing is certain: they must find Aerith.
There's an archipelago far to the south where Nanaki heard of the Lifestream running close to the surface. Without a better plan, the group agrees to travel there.
Barret uses the PHS in the cockpit to call Elmyra, since Shinra confiscated his and Tifa's. He speaks to Marlene after giving Aerith's surrogate mother the dire update on her daughter's whereabouts. It isn't good news, but he feels she deserves the truth. And they are doing all they can to locate her. Marlene, on the other hand, is ecstatic to hear Barret's voice. She doesn't seem concerned about the meteor, and the Weapons thankfully haven't made landfall around Kalm or Midgar.
"Did you see the cannon?" Marlene asks. "They are moving it to Midgar! We see it from our window. Big trucks with big pieces of metal on the highway."
So that's Shinra's plan, Barret thinks grimly. Drain even more Mako out of the earth to blast apart that strange barrier. Those idiots could draw a Weapon right to his precious baby girl. He asks Elmyra if there's somewhere else they can go, somewhere safer, away from the city. But there have been Weapon sightings all along the south, and since Junon's devastation, passage overseas is difficult to secure.
"Everything is chaos," Elmyra says. "Best to stay put, I think. This little town is far enough away from the city that if anything were to happen…"
"Jes' keep my daughter safe."
He speaks with Marlene for another hour while Cid pilots the airship towards the southern islands. Nanaki paces. Yuffie lays on a bench with her eyes closed, trying not to let the motion sickness win.
And Tifa stands at the windows of the cabin, watching the sea. She doesn't want to believe he's gone. She can still feel him out there, a memory in her heart, fresh and potent. It can't die. She begs it not to. But it is fading.
Not human. A manipulation of cells. She sees him smiling at her, at the Gold Saucer, drink in hand amid the ruckus of a crowded, fun night. Not human. He's next to her on the mist-covered bridge in the north crater, one arm out to protect her from the hideous thing in front of them, looming. He'd been part of that creature, made of the same stars.
She feels sick.
"I know you ain't awright." Barret stands next to her, toying with the loose metal of his missing arm. "Talk to me."
She's ashamed of this fear. It's unlike her to be afraid of anything. She's in Cosmo Canyon, leaning over to Cloud, whispering to him. I'm afraid now, she'd said. Of Jenova. Had he known then what she was truly saying?
"I'm okay," she says, rubbing one arm. "Exhausted. Uncertain."
Barret does his best to console her, and she accepts the distraction with gratitude. He shows off his idea to use a melee weapon at the end of his arm until he can secure the tools and supplies to rebuild his missing gun. She smiles and tells him it's a great idea.
Hours of flying over clear blue waters brings them to a smattering of lush islands outlined by wisps of sandbars. There are no signs of human interference in these tropics. Palms sprout from pebbled beaches, flocks of birds hunt and nest, and blankets of seaweed roll onto the shoreline. Jungle obscures much of the archipelagos, but there is a clearing of simple wooden structures at the center of the largest island. This, Nanaki surmises, must be the spa town he'd heard about.
Cid instructs the co-pilots to set the Highwind down at the edge of the forest. There isn't much cover to hide the massive airship, but the skies have, so far, been deserted. Shinra hasn't popped up on radar.
"Yet," Cid emphasizes.
He opts to stay with the airship while Tifa, Barret, Yuffie, and Nanaki explore.
The island is muggy swampland, teeming with insects and lizards and chirping frogs that stare with lidless eyes as the group trudges past. The sunlight filters into warm dusk beneath the canopied trees. Clumps of vines hang in hairy strands, and their travels go slow. Very slow. Tifa bats at stinging gnats and wipes strands of sweaty hair from her cheeks as they backtrack for the third time around thick muddy marshes. The brush is impenetrable at many egresses.
At last, they come upon a rickety walkway of rotting wood planks. It seems to lead towards the village. They follow the overgrown path, winding and hopping over damaged areas and crouching beneath thorned fallen branches.
"Geez, this place is really far out of the way!" Yuffie huffs.
"A pilgrimage, perhaps," Nanaki says. "Meant to test our determination."
Humidity clings clothes to her skin, and Tifa pulls her hair up into a loose bun. The air has a peculiar untouched sense here, a sacrality. Or maybe that's just what she wants to believe.
The mushy boardwalk leads into a sprawling area of wooden structures amid an elevation in the swamplands.
"This the town?" Barret asks. Because the answer should be no, yet this clearing must be what they saw from above.
Open-air bungalows rot vacant in the sun, and dry thatched roofs rustle brittle in the breeze. A broken wind chime twirls discordant on a porch. Everything is dilapidated and abandoned, and the scant boardwalk twists ahead, deeper into the village.
"Well...I guess we check it out," Tifa says and leads on. It seems hopeless, but she has to keep going. Stopping means her mind will start to focus on other things, other people. Him. Aerith, lost in the north crater. The monsters ravaging the coastlines. The meteor crushing their planet. No, she cannot stop. They must keep going.
So she does. Taking careful steps along the walkway, she notes the buildings here are all raised on stilts to protect against flooding. The wood planks creak as the others follow.
At length, they reach the center of town where a young man sits fanning himself outside a general store beneath an old windmill.
"Finally!" Yuffie exclaims and heads towards him. "Excuse me, we're looking for the Lifestream?"
The young man has long unkempt hair and smooth tanned skin. He'd been reclining in the sun, eyes closed, and the hand holding the fan drops to his side upon this disturbance.
"Oh, hey man," he replies with a serene grin. "Welcome to Mideel."
"This place has a name?" Barret scoffs.
But the man takes no offense. "Yeah, this gorgeous retreat sure does. Can you just feel the awesome power of nature here? The seclusion? Not many visitors, but we prefer it that way."
"...We?" Tifa asks. "You mean, there are other people living here?"
The man glances around. "Yeah, I mean, people come and go."
"And the Lifestream?" Yuffie implores. "Where's that?"
The young man hoots. "Oh man, you're about a decade too late for that, my friends. The hot springs dried-up ages ago."
"Ages?" Yuffie echoes, crestfallen.
Tifa feels a pang in her heart. She takes a short breath.
Nanaki shakes his head. "No, but I thought… There were stories of…"
"Oh yeah, a while ago," the man continues. "Mideel used to be quite popular because the hot springs came up straight from the Lifestream. So the stories are true. Just not anything recent."
With this, the man falls into his prior repose, eyes shut, embracing the atmosphere. After some nudging from Barret, the man points the way to the remnants of the springs, and Tifa heads onward.
Through the hollow of the town, they voyage, taking care to keep to the boardwalk between the swamps. The jungle is alive with a symphony of insects and birds, lizards and monkeys. Fungus trails over the bases of trees, and the road to the hot springs meanders further, deeper.
A sudden tremor rolls low in the earth. Tifa pauses. The others do, too.
"Earthquake?" Yuffie asks once it stops. "Here?"
Doesn't seem likely, but then another rumble comes, reverberating through the trees and shushing the wildlife for a second. When it passes, the birds resume their calls unaffected.
"Huh. Maybe it happens a lot 'round here," Barret says.
Perhaps the Lifestream truly is right beneath the surface, Tifa muses. Perhaps there is hope of reaching Aerith, if communing through it is even possible.
The boardwalk beyond Mideel terminates into a large clearing where a circular pit bakes in the open sun. This was once the hot springs. A carved stone stairway leads into a bottom of compacted dirt, blistering and dry.
No Lifestream. No trace.
"Aw, hell," Barret says and plops down at the ledge. He wipes his forehead and sighs.
A flock of orange and red parrots fly past, and Yuffie kicks a stone into the pit. Nanaki apologizes for his outdated knowledge and suggests they return to the Highwind.
With no better plan, the group departs the depleted springs.
Heading through the treacherous path, they are about to enter Mideel when a noise jets overhead. A boom of mini-turbines.
"Shit, get down!" Barret hisses.
Everyone scatters to the brush. Tifa's boots sink into stinking mud.
Overhead, a pair of Shinra HK drones fly in, surveilling and slowing.
"Oh no," Yuffie whispers. "What's Shinra doing here?!"
Then two more appear. Then four. Eight in total land out of sight towards the center of town. A black helicopter also cuts into view, lowering beneath the treeline.
Mechanical whirs and stomping metal break the soft cacophony of the forest.
"Tha's the only way through to the Highwind," Barret says.
They will have to navigate through Mideel without being spotted by those machines.
"Shinra must've located the airship," Tifa surmises. "But they don't know the four of us are here. We have to get back to Cid and help."
Fight or rescue, she doesn't know which will be relevant by the time they get there, but the Highwind is their only way off this place. They must go back.
The team agrees to split up to reduce the chance of detection, and they'll meet up at the other side of Mideel. The jungle must be too dense for the HKs to traverse, she hopes, which is why they landed in town. But why?
Another earthquake rumbles beneath her fingers, sending ripples through the mud.
Nanaki ventures off first, then Yuffie, and then Barret. Tifa watches each disappear along the shambled walkways. If only the village weren't surrounded by swampland, they could jog through the jungle and find a way around. Tifa curses under her breath. Shinra is always in the way, but they won't ever win.
When a sufficient amount of time passes, she slinks forward. The HKs march in synchronized pairs through Mideel. The galvanized dark metal of their chassis gleam in the afternoon sunlight. Tifa slides beneath the abandoned bungalows, crawling through mud and feeling clumps of rotten leaves and mush between her fingers. Mosquitoes buzz around her face. Her shirt soaks against her chest.
The HKs stomp by. Their steel hooves splinter the wood boardwalk and puncture the ground in rhythmic slops. She can hear the rotors spinning in the joints, that's how close they come, and she holds her breath waiting for them to pass.
But the pair are followed by another set of drones, and she must time her movements to not disturb the marshy waters too much. Tufts of grasses sway gentle ripples, and turtles flee from their basking rocks in the wake of the monstrous machines. Tifa hears the guns clicking, feels the camera-heads sweeping. She cannot see their torsos, but she knows they are searching. For them?
It seems absurd Shinra even still cares about Avalanche given the bigger concerns in the world right now.
Tifa continues her laborious crawl. She rises above the waters to dash behind another bungalow. She crouches and surveys and makes calculated moves. The HKs continue their patrol. She shakes a spider from her hair and squats in the shadows of a collapsed porch.
She's halfway through Mideel when the HKs change their route. They convene into groups of four and canvas the town in a line. A quake ripples the marshes, stronger this time, but the machines give no response.
She shimmies through a hole in the porch into the warm mud to stay out of sight as the HKs clip the corner. One of them stops outside her hiding spot, rotating. Searching. It stays too long, waiting for movement. Tifa squeezes her eyes closed. Discovery will surely kill her. Her muscles tense. Her body shakes, and she demands her pulse to quiet.
The HK falls silent except for a slight beeping that comes from its head.
Then it stomps away. Tifa lets out her breath and presses her palms into the mud to steady herself.
A new sound sloshes through the village. Footsteps, not mechanical.
Tifa eases beneath the bungalow and peers from its trenches.
A pair of boots stalks into view, and her heart catches. The boots she recognizes.
Her eyes go up. Her skin goes numb.
It's Cloud. He stands in cautious disposition, looking around. The First-Class uniform is caked with mud, and he rolls one shoulder where the massive broadsword hangs sheathed. He is alert, watchful, predatory.
Tifa swallows, tasting mud, and she dare not move yet her heart coils endless, painful. From this viewpoint, she sees his jaw, the sweat on his biceps, the dirty blonde hair, some strands frizzy in the heat. She wonders if his heart is beating as fast as hers.
Not human, she reminds herself. Two HKs return without reacting to his presence. He walks alongside them.
She keeps her eyes locked on him as he departs, and she presses out of the mud. The urgency to reach the others before anyone else spots him clutches her tight. The HKs patrol on while he pauses again, this time near the porch where the young man had been. The general store is empty now, and Cloud is alone.
Tifa brushes against a thorny undergrowth, and a snag scrapes her knee, swishing a tiny branch against its brethren. The sound is so minuscule, barely a scuffle, yet Cloud jerks his head in her direction.
Her body stiffens. His eyes scan the surroundings. He reverts to a motionless state, so absolute he would fade into the dismal scenery if it weren't for that uniform. And those eyes. This is what Shinra's made—a soldier to hunt and kill those who oppose. She finds it impossible, what they've done to him, what they've created.
He tilts his head in her direction.
Then, a rattle of gunfire jolts her. In the distance, the HKs engage with someone or something. Cloud draws his sword and dashes off in a flash. Her friends! They must be in danger. She hauls out of her hiding place but stops short once she hears the HKs returning. Seven of them, marching in a tight column, blocking the way forward. There is no way she can elude them in this formation. There is no way to reach her friends, Cloud, or the Highwind.
She clenches her fists. No, retreat is her only option. Seven would be suicide.
Gunshots continue as she creeps back to the path leading to the hot springs. The HKs advance, and Tifa presses as fast as she can. The gunfire ceases, but the machines do not. They are going to find her unless she leaves the village. The surrounding swamplands give no alternative other than the dried-up springs.
She'll withdraw and wait for the HKs to leave. She cannot help her friends if she is dead.
So she follows the planks back through the jungle, along the marshes and swarming insects and curious critters that watch with black eyes from shaded hollows. Long snakes skim the surface of the depthless swamps.
The dried pit of the springs is quiet and undisturbed. She stays at the edge of the perimeter and watches the path behind her, waiting for pursuit.
But nothing comes. There must be another route around the village. She has to reach the Highwind. There is no more gunfire, but the silence does not comfort.
Feverish, she scours the edge of the clearing, pushing into scrambles of brush and stretches of swamp in hopes of finding a way through. But large slithering animals crest the surface of the waters, and she becomes uncertain. This environment is foreign, and she doesn't know what is poisonous, what could bind or drown her.
"Your friends are dead."
She jumps at the voice, fists raised.
Cloud stands behind her, so close and silent she cannot bear that he approached her unseen. His sword is not drawn.
"Cloud…" She tests his name on her tongue. It sounds the same but feels so different.
There is blood splattered across his uniform. Dots of it fleck his cheeks and mouth.
"It's just you now," he says.
She raises a hand like an offering. "I don't know what they did to you or why you don't remember me, but this isn't you. You have to know that. You have to—"
"I don't see why Shinra had such a hard time with your group before. You don't seem so dangerous to me."
His tone is mild and dispassionate. He sounds tired.
"Cloud, please," she continues, palm down as if calming a rabid animal. "Please listen to me."
Had he really killed her friends? Her heart hammers at the thought of never seeing Barret again. Or Yuffie or Nanaki. Had he been to the Highwind and killed Cid? She pushes the thought away and breathes out.
"We grew up together in Nibelheim." Even as she says it, she hears the lie. She knows this is not the boy from her hometown. This is a monster from the stars.
"You're mistaken," Cloud says. "I'm not who you think I am."
He takes a step forward. She takes a step back. Thorns brush her shoulders. The jungle is too thick to run through, and even so, at this range she would not get far. He is fast, and he will catch her.
"Just listen to me," she keeps trying. "You were taken by Shinra—"
"Don't make this difficult," he sighs. "My orders are clear."
Termination, no doubt. His hand rests on his hilt. He's going to strike unless she does first.
She swallows the sickness in her heart and flies into a series of punches. Her mind clears with the focus of combat, and she releases into her training. Her fists become extensions of the muscles in her torso and hips as she twists in practiced sequences. He evades, knocking her momentum aside or blocking with his forearms. Each powerful roundhouse meets air. She pushes him back.
They are at the edge of the pit. Tifa is out of breath in this heat, in this denial clawing to stymie her jabs and hooks. Cloud is not even winded. Each blow glances off him. No impact.
Not human.
Then he catches her fist. He locks his arms through hers and pulls her rough, close.
"You aren't so bad."
"I know you won't hurt me," she states, though her wrist hurts, and she feels the bruising along her arms and shins from his hard blocks.
"What makes you think I won't hurt you?"
Their muscles tense against one another. She grits her teeth, positions her legs.
"Because you would've done it already," she says and drops her weight to spin her feet through his, to throw him off balance.
But he hops away and shoves her back. She falls into the pit, landing on the stone stairway carved along the side.
She gets up, scraped knees and elbows and lip bleeding, and she tightens her gloves. He advances down the stairs after her, each step methodical, baiting.
"Oh, you think I'm here to kill you?" he says.
She backs away, receding further into the pit. His question raises the faintest of hope.
"Y-you aren't?"
"Rufus Shinra ordered your termination. But Professor Hojo has other plans."
That name slays her resilience. Her mind escalates with a thousand horrors of what Hojo could have planned for her. She has no idea what Shinra would want with her. Not alive, at any rate. But his answer has her spinning, unable to focus. Unable to keep her knees firm. The world is shaking.
Everything is shaking. Truly. Cloud notices it, too. Another earthquake, but stronger and closer. It rocks the quarry, and parts of the stairway crack.
Behind Cloud, the jungle rises up like a wave. Trees uprooted and blankets of mud are suddenly in the air. He turns, hands out, exposing his back to Tifa. But she cannot run. She cannot take advantage of his lapse because there is a darkness rising from the planet.
A monstrous creature roars, towering over them, tossing palms like twigs, and exhuming clouds of dirt. It's chitinous and shimmering, and a segmented stalk of a neck supports an armored skull above rows of teeth.
Cloud's sword is out. He's heading towards the new threat, but the quaking hasn't stopped. Chunks of forest crash around them, fracturing the stones near the springs, destroying the pathway, and Tifa realizes this must be a Weapon.
This must be what Shinra is hunting, not her paltry group or their pathetic quest. Cloud isn't here because he was drawn to Tifa through some unseen esoteric connection. He's here to destroy this Weapon. The HKs buzz around it, firing at the enraged creature, and spikes of dirt soar upwards with every flailing of those ruby-red arms.
Shinra drones fly around it like buzzards, firing, but the onslaught does nothing. The Weapon raises two claws out of the ground, sending another shockwave of displaced trees and sediment towards Cloud and Tifa. A blizzard of leaves and mud pelts them. Tifa loses her grip and falls into the pit, hitting the bottom.
Rock bottom. Her hip hits the dust. Pain rivets up her side. Her lungs pull in dirt.
And the earthquake continues. The Weapon is irate, swiping HKs away like flies. The ground splits beneath her gloves.
Adrenaline pumps, and she bolts up. The stairs are collapsing. Crumbling stone cascades down as she climbs up. Fast. Not fast enough.
Cloud is above her, at the edge of the pit. His sword is out, and he gazes up at the creature. The full size of it is indeterminate from this vantage point; all Tifa sees is the neck and head, the terrible claws that shudder the ground with each strike.
How had Shinra known it would attack here next? And why?
It doesn't matter. Nothing matters once the floor gives out. A chasm opens the pit, and rock and dirt and stone tumble into blackness. Tifa screams and leaps, grabbing a stubble of a ledge with her fingertips as her boots touch nothing. She swings over the collapsing pit. Her gloves cannot find purchase. Her muscles shudder to balance her precarious position.
Cloud sees her. He glances back, and his eyes go wide.
He sheathes the sword and kneels, reaching for her.
"That's Mako!" he shouts. Dust coats his hair and clothes. His voice is raw over the noise of the Weapon. "Tifa, grab my hand!"
He said her name. He knows her. But he's looking behind her, full of fear at the distant churning liquid bubbling to the surface. It surges green and smoky. The Planet's opened a vein in the chaos, and its life-blood terrifies him.
Not human. She stares at him.
"Tifa!"
He gets onto his stomach, reaching, but her ledge crumbles. She grasps an adjacent rock, but it won't be enough.
"My hand!"
He's desperate, calling to her. But it isn't her he wants. No, he needs to complete his mission. He needs to bring her to Hojo.
Tifa cannot stomach this.
"You do not want to fall into that, Tifa. Trust me."
His tone turns dark, persuasive. What nightmares await her in the afterlife. Could it be worse than Hojo's knife?
She looks down at the Lifestream, pooling and writhing, far below her dangling feet. She looks up at Cloud, at his scared expression against an unnatural orange sky, at the debris falling around him like rain.
Rain on a slippery rope bridge in the Nibel mountains.
"Tifa!"
But that boy is dead and gone. This thing reaching for her now will only bring torment.
The stones are disintegrating beneath her grip. His fingers graze her knuckles.
She makes the choice and lets go. She will never let Shinra win.
The Weapon, the meteor, the mutilation of Cloud, and her dead friends in Mideel all recede as she plummets. The fall elevates her stomach. Blood rushes to her head, threatening blackout, and the smell of Mako intoxicates, sickens. It blurs her vision.
She smacks the surface. The liquid is cold at first, then it burns. It envelops her, viscous as paint, and she realizes she's made a mistake. It coats her flesh, infiltrates her lungs, suffocates and blinds. It is excruciating. Nothing like water. Nothing at all like she imagined.
Her muscles spasm; her chest aches. She kicks, to no effect. The Lifestream surrounds her in agony, and she regrets not taking his hand.
Then a shadow falls. Something else is in the Mako with her, curling arms around her close.
She thinks it's Cloud, but that's absurd. He would never willingly jump into this.
She's dying, and this can't be real. This sensation of him holding her must be the tragic misfire of her brain reconciling the panic of asphyxiation, the rapid beating of her heart.
But for a moment, it does feel like him. The one that rescued her from the Shinra Tower. The one who leaned in for a kiss beneath fireworks. The touch is protective, sincere. She can almost hear his heartbeat as he clutches her tight.
At least she won't die alone, even if this is a fantasy.
Pain wrecks her body. It expels her insides, breaks down every molecule until all that remains is the faintest connection of his touch to hers. Then that, too, is gone. She's hanging over the abyss in the Nibel Mountains. And it swallows her whole.
Author's Note:
"But Alma, the ruby weapon never attacked Mideel! That was the ULTIMATE weapon."
Yeah, but the ruby weapon is cooler. Plus there's no narrative reason for them to go BACK to the gold saucer area right now, and I wanted the ruby weapon up in here. I hope you can forgive me.
