Top Guide (In This Town)

Chapter 11

Blood boiling gold, Tifa straightened up from the blow to the head that had pushed her neatly past her limitations. Fair had drawn his weapon back into a defensive stance, looking wary. As if that ever helped.

In the body she'd grown into once, she wouldn't have used this against anything she didn't want dead. But it would be much weaker now, because she was weaker, and this could only multiply whatever damage you did in your own right. And she needed every advantage she could get.

Tifa planted her feet on Nibel stone and unleashed her Limit.

The first blow connected, her purple-lit fists hammering into Fair's chest straight through his guard and driving the breath out of him in a startled whoosh.

…the second blow connected, and she could feel the chain of coming strokes thrumming through her bones. When she had really been sixteen, her Limit had stopped at the first punch combo, but now she had felt the SOLDIER's shinbone crack under the ball of her foot and driven her heel into his jaw to knock him clear off his feet in a spray of conjured water.

Looked like she'd found the answer to that endless circular barroom conversation, that always came back whenever fighters sat around drinking long enough: the Limit Break was not something produced by the body. She'd brought it back inside her soul.

(If any of this was real at all.)

She caught him by the front of his uniform as he tipped back under the force of her kick, hauled his weight up into her control, and threw him into the ground so hard stone shook.

Sephiroth had turned to stare. Genesis wasn't taking advantage of the opening.

A sixteen-year-old with a fourth-level Limit wasn't entirely unheard-of. Yuffie hadn't been quite seventeen when they had stopped Meteor, and she'd had hers then. But Yuffie was the heir to a mighty warrior tradition fallen on desperate times, that had begun to train her in the midst of wartime and later been able to hand her the key to unlocking her full potential as soon as she came close to being able to handle it.

Tifa too had had a teacher able to track down the catalyst she needed on her behalf, but if the Shinra contingent had talked to the Master Zangan of this time, he certainly wouldn't have given the impression of having done so yet. And, she knew, her Limit was unusually strong.

It was also unusually easy to miss with, if you screwed up even a little bit, and so she blocked out the audience as much as she ever could ignore Sephiroth or Cloud, and focused on her target. Her knuckles slammed the SOLDIER right, and then left. There was no time for him to even really try to get away, let alone fight back.

Connect. Connect. Connect.

In the second-to-last stage, the golden bubbles spilling effervescent out of her blood and into the air, Tifa seized her opponent by one arm and one hip, lifted him over her head and slammed him into the stone, spine-first. He hit with an explosion of pure energy that reverberated across the entire mountain peak and made a few stones break away, rolling and clattering a sort of percussive descant to the rumble of violence shivering down the mountain.

Drew back her fist that flared bright as a living star, dragged him upright again enough to be able to drive the full concentrated force of her spirit and will to live into the center of his chest, and sent SOLDIER First Class Zack Fair pinwheeling across the barren stone in a mess of slack limbs and black fabric.

He fetched up against the foot of the reactor. (Tifa knew what she was doing. She wouldn't punch Cloud's once-savior off a cliff without a very good reason.)

He lay still. It was hard to tell whether he was breathing.

"Zack!" Sephiroth called out sharply.

Fair groaned. "Mmmokay!" he managed, but did not attempt to stand up, or even roll over off his face. One of his feet twitched.

Tifa squinted at him. Faking? Probably not. She didn't want to leave him conscious at her back, but she also didn't want to risk killing him when her Limit had managed to avoid crossing that line. Cloud's mouth was hanging wide open. It was hard to tell if he was distressed or just astonished, but she'd be surprised if he wasn't at least a little worried about his…friend, mentor, whatever.

Sephiroth's eyes were doing their best to burn a hole into the side of her head. "What exactly was that?"

Tifa rolled her eyes. "Limit Break."

"Obviously." Sephiroth's eyes were flaring at her pale and cold. Was he finally taking her seriously? If so, that would be unfortunate, because that had been pretty much everything she had. Another hit or two and she would probably drop dead. Hel, she might be bleeding badly enough to drop dead in an hour or so even without taking any new injuries, if she didn't manage to scrounge up more potions or something.

"Me winning?" she suggested.

She wished Sephiroth would stop trying to be dramatic. He wasn't bad at it, exactly, but she was so used to being tired of it, of having to wait through his self-aggrandizement to get to the point, of having to pay attention to what he was saying in case it was a clue even though she didn't care what he had to say. This Sephiroth wasted fewer words, but as soon as he started posturing her patience clicked off just like always, and she went back to chomping at the bit to punch his face in, like a badly-trained chocobo.

"Oh shit," the soldier Vincent had rescued at the bridge breathed aloud.

Tifa looked automatically, just as she would have if a WRO agent had reacted the same way. (Lots of WRO personnel had been ex-Shinra, though of course this man hadn't been among their number because he had been dead.) She looked, and the chill in her bones returned as it hadn't for Sephiroth's fury. She was surrounded.

All around the peak, just outside and just inside the spires of the crown, had gathered what seemed to be a small army of SOLDIERs, in what struck her immediately as vaguely peculiar gear. Quilted sleeves instead of sleeveless knits. Xes across the surface of each helm. A scattering of men in equipment more like Cloud's trooper uniform, with the triangle of lenses to promote some visibility.

Then—no. Tifa's alarm twisted into a vague queasiness, because three of the figures gave every evidence of being Genesis, coat and all. But without that absurdly telegraphed sense of poise—with no real emotion she could discern at a glance, at all.

A few more wore the customized SOLDIER gear with no helmets on, and wore too the same face, with as little animation. And now she was looking for it…all the ones with helmets covering their vision shared that pointed jawline.

And each of them, whatever their gear, bore a single black-feathered wing.

Copies. Just as he'd hinted at having. Copies more numerous, more silent, more useful-looking at a glance than the numbered chanting husks in black cloaks had ever been. Was this what Hojo had been trying to replicate, with Cloud? (Cloud was safe, for now, he was behind Sephiroth, the clone-things were ignoring him.)

"If you believe," Sephiroth said coldly, and she snapped her focus back to him. What did it say, that she had managed to be almost entirely distracted from Sephiroth threatening her with a sword? Well, besides being an example of the fact that you really could get used to anything. It was her he was looking at again, though, and that deserved her full attention. "That after this I will permit you to leave…"

"Yes, because you were so anxious to let us be on our way before."

Tifa's scathing retort was delivered more or less on autopilot. What did he mean by 'this?' Siding with Genesis? Proving she could under the right circumstances take down a SOLDIER? Genesis bringing in his humanoid horror show?

She was getting used to Sephiroth's angry face. Bizarrely, it really was less alarming than having him laugh at you.

He began to advance. Tifa adjusted her footing, listening to the slide of grit over stone. Sephiroth's steps were completely silent, like a mirage sweeping toward her.

Behind him, reduced to background, Tifa's new ally swept his wing out in perfect time with his sword in a snap and rattle of pinions, scattering black feathers like rain. "I believe," he announced, "we have worn out our welcome." He bated sharply, and launched himself into the air.

There was just long enough to be outraged that he had torpedoed her negotiations only to swan off again once the battle proved predictably challenging, before the rustling of wings surrounded Tifa. Sephiroth looked, for a moment, taken aback, halted mid-stride, and once again she took her eyes off him to evaluate the more immediate concern.

Sure enough, copies of the self-proclaimed monster were closing in on her from both sides, wings fluttering; hands reaching out, clutching. Tifa kicked the nearest one in the shin, and didn't feel bones crack because she was so weak right now. One grabbed her from behind. She kicked it, too. A kneecap popped out of alignment. There was no sound of pain.

They were lacking some of the greyness that seemed to define the original, but they lacked his grace, too, and up close now to one of the few with bare faces Tifa could see there was that deadness behind the eyes that she associated with humanoid monsters that lacked human intelligence, although…more so somehow. At least those usually came at her looking hungry.

She drove the heel of her hand into a chin and made the thing's head snap back as it sought a grip on her forearm.

"Oh, for—I am trying to help!" Genesis called, from somewhere above the reactor.

Moment of truth. Well, she still couldn't let herself be taken prisoner by Shinra, not with everything she knew. Even if Cloud decided to pass on everything she'd told him, most of the most actionable information hadn't come up, because this Cloud didn't have the context to have needed it.

Tifa bit her tongue and let herself be grabbed. Vincent, in the corner of her eye, went still in the grip of several helmet-wearing figures.

With a pair of one-winged clone-things at each elbow, they both were lifted away amongst the flock. Cloud and the other trooper emptied their rifles into the cloud of flying men, nowhere near either her or Vincent. Fair continued to lie on his face. But as the jagged crown of Mount Nibel fell away below them, a line of blue-white light came scything from the tip of Masamune and passed directly over Vincent's head, decapitating all four of his bearers.

He dropped sharply, expressionless, between the corpses, toward the distant stone, until two more Genesises swept in a hundred feet down and plucked him from the air.

Tifa breathed again. A few seconds after that they were out of range for most long-range attacks including casting, and soon after that dropping behind an adjacent peak to get out of sight.

"Is this a rescue or a kidnapping?" she called across to the mind controlling the swarm.

"We can negotiate that at my local base of operations."

Oh, excellent.

His 'base of operations' turned out to be one of the many caves dotting the range—not one Tifa had explored before. The entrance they were brought through was most of the way up a cliff face, not completely unreachable to a determined mountaineer but certainly well out of anyone's way.

The tunnel mouth was barely wide enough for two adult humans, and twisted sharply enough to keep out the worst of the wind, but some way in it broadened out into a sizable cavern, studded with veins and spires of materia crystal that would probably have looked even more gorgeous in brighter light, rather than lit only from within. Several shadowy patches of wall looked like they could be alternate exits.

The place showed signs of habitation. There was a small brazier with a kettle balanced over it near the entrance, placed close so most of the smoke drifted out through it, and a large stack of small sealed parcels Tifa recognized as Shinra's old mass-produced rations, which they'd issued to their troops in the field.

The expired ones got traded below-plate a lot, and a surviving company stockpile had kept a lot of the Meteor survivors alive those first weeks. They'd been notorious for causing constipation.

Most of the far walls lost themselves in darkness, except where patches of crystalized mako marked themselves out with inner light. Several patches of complete darkness might be the mouths of other tunnels.

One corner particularly rich in faintly glowing Independent-colored crystals had been furnished with a thick rug and, absurdly, heaps of cushions, ranging from very fine brocade articles to, peeking from the bottom of the stack, something that looked like it had come off somebody's tatty sofa. "Please, make yourselves comfortable," Genesis invited, sinking with slightly stiff elegance into the largest heap and gesturing hospitably around his magenta-lit nest. The wing had disappeared at some point after they reached the caves, as he followed Tifa and Vincent up the narrow entrance shaft, but it almost seemed for a moment like it was still there.

Maybe Shinra had thrown some bird cells in too, while they were having their fun.

Tifa lowered herself onto the nearest unoccupied cushion, out of arm's reach of their host, her back by necessity toward the exit and the congregation of most of the Copies near it, but Vincent remained standing. So did nearly a half-dozen blank-faced duplicates that had followed them over, thronging mostly behind and beside the original Genesis; Tifa wasn't sure she liked the parallel but somebody should keep an eye on the things, and she could entrust that to Vincent. "Thanks," she said as she settled herself. "Nice place."

"I do my best to make do," the strange bird-man demurred. "Now, let me hear your story."

As if. They were supposed to be negotiating whether she'd been kidnapped, and he expected her to lay all her cards on the table? "Sephiroth and I had a difference of opinion."

"A difference of opinion," Genesis repeated.

"I'm not really in the mood for story time," Tifa shrugged. "Look at me, I'm getting blood all over your cushion."

"Well, that won't do." Green sparked near his right elbow, where he must have some sort of bangle under his coat, and a hefty Cura rippled over her, wiping away the aftermath of battle. Hm. She felt pretty much fully restored. Even a lot of the fatigue had cleared up. He wasn't bad.

Not as good as Aerith had been, but better than she'd expected.

She had noticed his casting earlier, of course, but not everyone who was good at battle magic was good with healing. Everyone in the last Avalanche had been an accomplished caster by the end of their journey, but everyone's specialties were different, and they'd all focused a little more on power than on precision.

"Thanks," she said, and rubbed some of the blood off her forearm to examine the skin underneath. No scar, nice.

"Now," said Genesis, and suddenly one of his helmeted Copies loomed up over them, holding—a teapot. Another, in SOLDIER gear but barefaced, blandly distributed cups, including to Vincent. The cups did not match. But they were all proper, delicate teacups, rather than mugs. Genesis himself kept talking as the Copy in the helmet deftly poured into the one in his hand. "Your story."

"Do they have minds of their own?" Tifa asked, obligingly making her new teacup (no saucer) available to the thing with the tea, which filled it very neatly almost to the brim.

"Not really," said Genesis. "Sugar?"

"No thanks," said Tifa, who wasn't dumb enough to actually be planning to drink it.

Genesis glanced up at Vincent, who was standing with the handle of the delicate cup pinched between two golden claws, and shook his head. No sugar, thank you.

Their disquieting host resettled himself amidst his cushions, confirming her earlier vague impression that he was favoring his left shoulder in spite of his healing abilities. Old wound? Sipped daintily at his own steaming cup. Tifa blew on hers. It did smell nice. Familiar. The hearty stuff they shipped in bricks from Gongaga-way out to points west. He'd bought or stolen it locally.

"Come, don't leave me in suspense."

Tifa faked a sip of tea. "Weren't we going to discuss whether I've been kidnapped or not?"

"…ah. Why don't we settle it that as long as we speak as friends, I cannot possibly have kidnapped you?"

So it was like that, then. Well, it wasn't like she was surprised. Suspecting she might actually have been better off surrendering to Sephiroth, considering that at present he had fewer subordinates available and limited places to stash a prisoner, but not surprised.

"That's not really the most friendly sentiment."

Genesis frowned a little, not enough to distort his face unattractively, and cast a second Cura, this time on Vincent, with an elegant but somewhat pettish wave of his left hand, as if to say, I've helped you so far haven't I? "Is there anything else I can do for you to prove my friendly intentions?"

"Fire materia, if you've got any to spare." He raised his eyebrows questioningly. Tifa explained, "I've got something to burn."

Genesis quirked his eyebrows. "If you tell me what, perhaps I can oblige," he said. "And what your role is in this little drama, of course."

Back to that again. Well, of course they were. The only cards she had were what she knew. "I know some things about the Jenova Project," Tifa said slowly, one hand cupped under her tea to feel the heat of it sinking into her bones. "I've been trying to get Sephiroth to listen to me about it, instead of trusting what the scientists want him to think."

"Hm." This clearly didn't satisfy him, but he didn't push immediately. "And what do you know about…Project G?" he asked instead, looking up at Vincent again more piercingly this time as he directed the question at him.

Vincent avoided his eyes in favor of staring into the darkness that hid the far wall of the cavern. Was there something there for his low-light vision to pick up? If so, it probably wasn't too alarming, because he hadn't commented.

"Not much," he answered blandly. "I didn't even know it was a part of the Jenova Project. Just that Hojo wanted to show the project lead up."

"Hm."

"It has to do with why you're going grey?" Tifa hazarded. You could get away with a lot of very intrusive questions if you held your teacup properly and used the right detached tea-time sort of tone, or at least you'd been able to at the ladies' tea parties her mother's old friends used to invite her to out of pity. "You aren't thirty yet, are you?" It was hard to tell, between the physical deterioration and the affected manner, but if she relied on the voice…

The man's rosebud lips pressed together sharply and for an instant he looked murderous, before he sunk back into his cushions and passed his empty cup up to the minion with the teapot, which filled it again.

The one beside it added a small amount of sugar. Tifa suspected that there was no milk because living in a cave above ground level made it hard to keep a proper cold storage, but maybe Genesis was just a purist. He seemed like the type who would prefer to invest in high-quality tea and then avoid concealing the delicate flavor with condiments.

"The end is nigh," he agreed, with a lofty sort of melancholy. The blank-eyed thing at his shoulder handed his cup back, with a tiny spoon in it, and he gave it a brisk counterclockwise stir. "It has everything to do with it. Hence my interest in your expertise."

He was going to be disappointed. Maybe the Geostigma cure would have worked for him, but Tifa didn't have it, or the knack of summoning it, and she was no scientist. She swirled her tea and tried to sound technical.

"Jenova is a monster that fell from outer space about two thousand years ago. Her traits include psychic manipulation and genetic contagion. She brought about the destruction of the Cetra. The survivors sealed her away, until Shinra dug her up about…twenty-seven years ago."

She hadn't told Sephiroth nearly this much, but Sephiroth was a definite enemy she needed every possible advantage against. Genesis was a tentative ally, and whatever else she might think of him there was no reason to think he was at imminent risk of wiping out Nibelheim. And knowing more about Jenova wasn't likely to make him more vulnerable to any manipulations that might be in the works.

It wasn't necessarily likely to make Sephiroth more vulnerable either, but it might make him jump more rapidly to Planet-killing and would definitely give her less control over his actions, and under the circumstances that was a perfectly reasonable resource to be hoarding.

"Gast Faremis mistook her for an Ancient," she told one of Jenova's creatures, "and the Jenova Project was set up to try to recreate the Ancients, at least enough to use their powers to enrich Shinra. Based on the results of that, they created SOLDIER."

"Ah," said Genesis, very knowingly.

"You knew that much?" Tifa asked.

"More or less. Do go on."

Tifa shrugged. That was about as much as she had, for the science part. "The problem is, the corpse is conscious. And psychic. And malicious."

"…ah," said Genesis again. Less knowingly, but also less like he was sure he should believe her. That was fine, she didn't need him to. She just needed him not to get in her way.

"You were in SOLDIER?" Tifa asked. She couldn't imagine how else he'd have met Sephiroth, and there was no mistaking the uniform under that peculiar faded coat, but.

"I was. SOLDIER First Class. Army Commander." Again he turned away to show off his face at an angle, half-bowed over his cup. "But that's all in the past."

Part of Tifa felt she knew this story. The rogue ex-SOLDIER in his personalized blacks, who had wanted to be a hero, with his grudge against Sephiroth and his blue eyes and his powerful magic. But there was a blank-faced Copy standing beside him, and Cloud…

Cloud had never really been in SOLDIER.

"That's how you know Sephiroth, then," she said.

His face darkened. "And so we return to the subject of our illustrious General."

"I am mostly worried about protecting my hometown from him."

"…all that awaits you a somber morrow, no matter where the winds may blow."

"I'm not giving up." Tifa settled her tea on one knee. "I can't count on being able to kill him, so I have to stabilize him. At least long enough to get him away from here."

Genesis' eyebrows arched high. "How refreshingly unsentimental."

Tifa shrugged. It would take even Sephiroth a while to destroy the world once he decided on it, giving her time to come up with a better plan to stop him, and she'd made her peace with being selfish enough that her first prayer when darkness came was always not here, not mine, not them. If all the difference she made to the timeline was that Nibelheim did not burn, Cloud was never placed under Hojo's power, and Aerith lived to have a happy ending, then as long as the Planet still survived in the end, she could be content with that much.

She'd rather save everybody, of course. But the difference between her and Cloud was, she knew how to live with failing to do that.

(It wasn't his fault. The years she'd spent healing and learning and growing up, after Nibelheim, he'd spent being tortured and having his mind pried apart. She reminded herself of that sometimes, when he seemed so childish she wanted to shake him. Of course, now he really was a child.)

"You're so certain he's a danger to the public," Genesis mused. "Just because of what he is?"

"…and what he's done." Awkward, unclear. So far as Tifa knew, until Sephiroth murdered everyone she knew and vanished into the Lifestream, he'd been known for exquisite self-control.

Genesis only snorted, delicately. "Hmph. I suppose you're one of those who would call him the Demon of Wutai, rather than the Hero."

Tifa shrugged. "That's what the Wutai called him, isn't it?"

Genesis nodded, a slightly sharper gesture than his pattern had been so far, as though this subject excited him to impatience as nothing else had. "'Hair the color of death,' and all that nonsense. I used to think that was where it all started—his overmarketing, I mean." For someone who had been so irritated to have Sephiroth brought up, he seemed eager enough to talk about him. "I know better now, but even so.

"They call him a hero, for what he did in the war—sometimes, Shinra gave him credit for things he hadn't done, to bolster his legend. Including some of my achievements. I should have been the hero."

Tifa fell back on her bartending skills and made a sympathetic noise. Like most men with grievances to air, Genesis took this as sufficient encouragement.

"He's complacent. The fact is that Sephiroth has always been given power and respect without having to try for it. When," and here he seemed to catch himself, smoothed the breakaway emotions back under a skin of smooth perfectly-dictated lyricism, "he is really just like me…born a monster."

The way he said it was so strange. Woeful but not really sad. The corners of his mouth curled up after the word monster; there was something to him that was almost smug.

"That's a harsh thing to say about yourself," Tifa said quietly. She settled her teacup in the join between two cushions, which should keep it upright.

Genesis seemed mildly taken aback by this observation. "I suppose," he allowed. Gave a sigh. "Yet how can we control our fates, if we cannot accept the truth?"

"Monsters are for killing," Tifa pointed out, watching him intently. "Monsters don't serve you tea and gossip."

A bitter, lovely curve of the lips. "Do you tell a monster by its teeth, or by the biting?"

That was a southeastern expression, one Tifa had first heard in Midgar during an argument about somebody's misbehaving child but was given to understand came originally from dog-breeding circles, where daring breeders would often introduce canid monsters to their bloodlines, or even just ordinary wolves, in the effort to bring in more strength and ferocity, and then ruthlessly weed out again any offspring that were vicious or could not be tamed—and usually also any that showed distinct physical traits that had definitely come from the monster, rather than the dog.

It was rather too apropos for his situation.

Especially because, if she was to take Shinra's word for it, you could judge him by the wing and by the killing.

"Why," Tifa said, searching this absurd creature's face. "Why did you do it?" A bend to his eyebrows like he wasn't sure what crime she might be asking about. Which he might not be; 'we've all killed a lot of people' could cover a lot of ground, and Tifa wouldn't know what particular mistake she'd made in her life would be meant by 'it' if someone were to ask her the same question.

She leaned in, blood rushing in her ears. "Why did you kill the townspeople?"

Sephiroth had never explained, in her timeline, beyond a general hatred of humanity. This man was like him enough to compare. The more she understood what had happened then, the more chance she had of keeping it from happening again. Right? Knowledge had to make the difference, because it was all she had. Right?

Tifa blinked the flames of Nibelheim from her eyes and clarified, "Your hometown," because he still hadn't answered and for all she knew it wasn't even the only town he had destroyed. It could be a lie, of course, that he'd done it even the once, but if so it was one Fair had believed. She would give the man a chance to deny, or justify it.

Genesis shrugged. Finished his tea again. Denied nothing. "I hated them."

Tifa leaned forward further, up onto her knees, so her toes could grip the floor—except it was more cushions, oh well. "…what did they do to you?"

Nibelheim had never been particularly fond of Cloud, that was all, and that had been bad enough really, but she knew some places could be much crueler. Genesis did not particularly act like a lifelong victim, but you never knew for certain what people were hiding behind their facades. Especially such dramatic ones.

"Oh, nothing. They were merely…" A small shrug. "Worthless. The people who called themselves my parents…" And now the real hate slid in, a faint bitterness like cyanide in water but entirely distinct from the way he'd spoken of his other victims.

She slapped him.

There was a time when her backhand could block bullets and kill rampaging monsters in one stroke. Today it just snapped the mutant SOLDIER's head around, and he turned back to face her with his mouth pulled into a moue of affront. One gloved hand stole up to press against the spot, though there was no mark.

"I know about making sacrifices for a cause," Tifa bit out, settling back onto her heels. "Your personal feelings aren't a cause."

Maybe he'd had good reasons to kill his parents. Some parents were that bad. But spreading it out across a whole town, just because he'd decided their lives were worthless, just because he needed an outlet for his hate—she had no sympathy for that. That was the last thing she would ever forgive.

"What other cause is there?" he asked. Anger was snapping in his eyes and she should care but she didn't. "Dreams of the morrow hath the shattered soul."

Loveless again. "Pride is lost, wings stripped away…you have wings enough to fly with!" Tifa's fists closed, even as she sank back onto her heels. She picked up her tea again to keep her hands busy, so he wouldn't think she was about to hit him some more and take defensive action. The warmth against her palms was steadying. "What have you lost, that you didn't destroy yourself?"

Unreal fire licked in the man's eyes. He looked on the verge of real madness for a moment, beyond his own control. "I am dying."

"So? So what? Everyone dies. Why are you special?"

Tifa had seen how heroes died. Cloud, watching it come slowly from within his own corrupted flesh and walling himself away alone, as if he thought losing him sooner could make it hurt less; Aerith kneeling with a smile on her lips as she saved the world, falling with her hands still clasped together. Even Jessie and the others lying bleeding out onto steel steps over Sector Seven.

Bugenhagen's last words. The statue that had once been Nanaki's father.

This, this outraged scrabbling, this martyred air without cause or self-sacrifice—this was disgusting. This was Shinra, every inch their philosophy of acquisition, entitlement, and resource exploitation, only applied to such abstract attainments as heroism. She hadn't thought the word could be made dirtier than in Sephiroth's old title, but here a way had been found.

The black wing was there again, suddenly, shed feathers wafting out in a fluttering cloud, as the phantom limb curved a velvet-dark flourish that almost brushed Tifa's cheek. The monster-SOLDIER's eyes gleamed remote and terrible.

"You cannot possibly understand," he bit out in that voice like silk. "What it is to learn your life has been a lie, and your days numbered by the men who turned you into something inhuman, and then cast you aside."

Tifa sat still a moment. Thinking of the look on Cloud's face when he broke, at the Northern Crater, in the grotto where Sephiroth and Weapon had both lain waiting. The way he had apologized to her, cringed toward Hojo…lifted into the air and gone at least partly of his own mangled will to give Sephiroth the tool he needed to unmake all life.

The way the pain that had wracked him so long, pain that she had ignored because she did not know how to help and was afraid of what answers might come if she asked too closely, had fallen away into a distant sorrow, as he accepted that he had no right to make choices anymore, as he let their enemies convince him he had never truly had even the ability.

And she thought of Aerith and Nanaki, who had lived as victims of Shinra's science and escaped again, and given so much of themselves to guard others.

And she felt Vincent standing silent at her back.

"You're right," she said. "I don't understand." She looked up into those deep blue eyes. "I don't understand how anyone can go through something like that, and turn around and treat other people like things."

These negotiations had gone south. Just like the last ones, and the ones before those. Probably Tifa should get better at compromising.

But there were some things she could not compromise.

She threw her tea in his eyes and bolted.

A/N: Tifa's pretty good at ignoring her issues with people in the name of cooperation, but the specific act 'killed a whole town for reasons that had nothing to do with them' would require about 500% more chill than she is currently capable of producing, even if she trusted Genesis' intentions.

And yes, Zack absolutely did that on purpose. Tifa hasn't been hiding her triggers...pretty much at all.