Fire
I don't know what falling into the Lifestream was like for Cloud, but for me it was both an awesome experience and the most horrible sensation of my life. I was raging fire, I was molten rock, I was wind sighing through trees, I was ocean spray. I was the earth and the air and the sea. I was everything and everywhere at once.
Neither Cloud nor Tifa has ever spoken of the time they spent in the Lifestream. I had no idea what this stunt was going to do to me...a week had nearly killed Cloud, and he wasn't- isn't- entirely human. I was just a young, disowned, homeless, penniless ninja who was all too human.
Still, I considered this better than the alternative.
I have no real idea how long I was in the Lifestream. Certainly I wasn't tied up anymore- the ropes had fallen away the moment I sank into the glowing green.
I wonder if my eyes'll glow too now. It was that discordant thought that awoke me to the fact that I was no longer in the Lifestream. I sat up dazedly and opened my eyes.
Whoa.
Cloud and Vincent neglected to mention that glowing eyes mean glowing sight. Everything around me was wrapped in glowing gray. I hadn't even known such a thing as glowing gray existed. Well, there seemed to be a pretty good lack of mental damage, even physical damage, for having swum through the Lifestream.
At least...that's what I thought...
"Yuffie?"
I whirled, only now noticing where I was. Lucrecia's cave.
Of course. We all agreed to meet here if we got lost...
"Vincent! Cloud!" They're...what are they looking at?
I walked up behind Cloud and peered over his shoulder. I'm too short to see over Vincent.
Actually, I thought I was too short to see over Cloud...
Then I saw what they were staring at so fixedly and choked, making them both whirl around, weapons at the ready.
It was me. My body.
Which I, apparently, was no longer attached to.
"Yuffie!" Cloud threw his arms around me...and we both stood still in shock as his arms went through me.
"Uh...hi, guys," I said quietly and awkwardly into the silence. "How...how long have I been gone?"
"A month," Vincent said grimly, rising with my... with my body cradled in his arms. "Four times what drove Cloud mad, if you jumped in the Lifestream the same day we lost you."
"I did," I said unsteadily. "Oh...the slavers..."
"Oh, they're dead," said Cloud so grimly that I decided I didn't want to know the details. Ever.
"How'd you know I was in the Lifestream?" I'd think that would be hard to figure out...
Vincent shrugged. "Knew. Both of us. Red XIII was aware also."
Hojo.
"You've still got a pulse, by the way," Vincent added. I followed him and Cloud into the cave as he carried my body in and laid it on the pedestal. The one where Lucrecia's spirit had been.
"The Mako will preserve it." Vincent answered my unspoken question. "In case we find out how to heal...this."
Well, I could see at least one positive side to all of this.
"Looks like you two and Red'll have a bit more company than you'd bargained for."
Finally Cloud smiled. "I guess we will."
