Chapter 102: Empty
"Here you go," Tifa said, gently forcing the necklace into Sora's hands. He stared at it, a bit blankly, but she wrote it off as the fact he probably couldn't see very clearly. She smiled at him and then headed to the kitchen where Aerith was, preparing a wet rag.
"You need me to do anything?" Tifa asked.
Aerith glanced up at her.
"Um… sure," she said, slowly. She sounded a bit distracted, still. "Can you go get one of Leon's shirts from the dryer? We should get Sora into something clean."
Tifa chuckled. "Sure thing." She turned to do so, but then Aerith stopped her.
"Listen, I'm sorry about—"
She shook her head. "Don't worry about it," she told Aerith, firmly. "I would've freaked out, too."
Aerith made a face. "Still, I—" she began.
Tifa shook her head again. "Not now. Sora needs healing." And before Aerith could argue or apologize any more, she went to go get one of Leon's shirts. When she came back, Aerith was helping Sora out of his torn and bloodied shirt. Tifa winced slightly. The gash in his shoulder looked a lot worse than she had originally thought.
"Something going on?" Yuffie asked, groggily. Tifa turned to find her standing at the top of the stairs.
"Couldn't sleep?" she called.
Yuffie shook her head. "Storms always keep me awake," she muttered, making her way down the stairs. "That, and someone was—" Her eyes widened in shock as she caught sight of Sora. "Oh," she said simply. She stood there for a moment, and then asked: "Anything I can do to help?"
"Can you make Sora some hot chocolate?" Tifa replied. She had a feeling that he could use some.
Yuffie rolled her eyes. "Of course I can!" She shoved past Tifa and into the kitchen.
Tifa started to respond, but then thought better of it. She headed up the stairs instead, and then knocked on Leon's door.
"Leon?" she called.
He groaned.
"Are you awake?"
There was silence for a moment.
"I can be," he said, though he didn't sound incredibly excited about the idea.
She sighed. "Well, Sora just showed up, and he's been injured pretty bad," she said. "And Aerith's kind of freaking out, because of the rain, and all the blood, and there was darkness in the wound…" She trailed off, knowing that Leon would understand that. Then, afraid of worrying Leon, she added: "Aerith's doing okay now, but Sora's acting a bit off, and if something happens, I'd rather not be the only one around who's responsible enough to take care of it."
"Yuffie's awake?" Leon asked.
"Yeah."
He yawned.
"Give me a second. You should probably wake up Cid, though. He'll complain about missing something if he isn't awake…"
Tifa laughed.
"Thank you."
Leon didn't respond.
Tifa sighed and then went to Cid's room, pounding rather mercilessly on his door.
"Oi, Cid!" she called. "Leon said I should wake you up, because something important might be happening!"
"Who said I was sleepin'!" Cid shouted back. "Now go mind yer own business! I'll come down when I want to, an' not any sooner!"
Tifa chuckled and then made her way back downstairs. Leon'd beaten her down, a little surprisingly, and after finishing exchanging something with Aerith, he moved to the storage closet, probably to get bandages. Yuffie had finished the hot chocolate, and was setting a cup down in front of Sora. She settled into the couch opposite of where Sora and Aerith were, holding her own cup of hot chocolate.
Seeing as how Leon was now here to help Aerith, there wasn't much for Tifa to do. She stayed standing though, just in case, leaning against the partial wall separating the kitchen from the living room. Aerith had finished cleaning up Sora's wounds, and was now trying to heal him.
"I'm not sure I'll be able to heal this up all the way," Aerith gently told Sora. "There's an awful lot of darkness in the way."
Yuffie frowned in confusion.
"I thought that the darkness wasn't really a problem for you, Aerith," she said. "You've cured plenty of other wounds that were full of darkness!"
"Yuffie, most of those wounds were much smaller," Leon sighed, as he set the bandages on the coffee table. "And there is definitely more darkness in this wound than in any of the others." After a short consideration of Sora's condition, and a grimace, he added: "Sora's going to be lucky if he doesn't lose sight in his left eye."
Aerith only nodded in agreement. She was too busy concentrating on healing Sora's left eye to say anything.
Yuffie looked as if she didn't entirely believe them.
"The amount of darkness can't make that much of a difference," she muttered.
"It can make all the difference in the Worlds," Aerith replied quietly.
Yuffie started to say more, but Leon silenced her. Tifa thanked him silently, and then resolved to thank him again later. Leon sat down on the couch next to Yuffie, directly across from Sora, looking more than ready to get back up and fetch something at a moment's notice.
"Hmm… Nice little trick you got there, banishing the darkness from a wound like that," Sora said, rather suddenly.
Tifa turned to look at him in surprise. That was the first thing she'd heard him say all night.
However… She didn't like the tone in his voice…
"Pity you didn't know how to do that, oh, what was it, four years ago?" Sora continued. He was taunting Aerith. Fiercely reminded of Sephiroth, and his taunts, Tifa pushed away from the wall, every muscle in her body tensing. Sora had a Shadow. Was this him?
"Sora," Leon warned.
That didn't stop him, though.
"You could've saved him, huh, if you'd known how to do this then?" Sora said, sounding more amused than anything else.
Aerith was trembling. Yuffie looked about ready to throw her hot chocolate at Sora. Tifa quickly wracked her brain for ways to make Sora snap out of it, but short of punching him in the face—which wasn't a good idea, seeing as he was already injured—nothing was coming to mind.
"Sora, cut it out!" Leon said, his voice just short of shouting. He was on the verge of jumping out of his seat. "Aerith—"
"Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about!" Sora laughed, over Leon, watching Aerith eagerly. He didn't sound like himself. "I know it still hurts you. The fact you couldn't save him. I know it does."
Aerith turned away slightly. Tifa moved towards Leon, as quickly but as discreetly as possibly, recognizing the look of someone about to get violent. Leon was normally very level headed, but when it came to attacking his family…
"You tried so hard, didn't you?" Sora continued, not dropping a beat. "But there was too much darkness and not enough time, not to mention you didn't have enough experience. And that hurts, because if you had just—"
"Hey!" Tifa shouted, reaching down to snap her fingers in front of Sora's face. She'd already been heading for Leon, an extra step around the couch to reach Sora hadn't been much trouble. "Knock it off, will you!"
Sora blinked a few times, then looked up at her. Horror flooded his features, and slowly, as if he didn't dare, he turned to face Aerith. His face scrunched up in anguish.
"I- I'm sorry!" he stammered. "I'm so- so sorry. I didn't mean, I—"
He clutched at his head.
"Stop it! Stop it!" he cried, curling up on himself. "It's bad enough you made me do this to Cloud, but now Aerith, too!? Just stop it! Stop!"
"Wha's all this yellin' about!" Cid demanded, coming down the stairs, looking rather disgruntled.
"I don't really know, but—" Yuffie began.
"Stop laughing!" Sora shouted. "Stop laughing! It's not funny! I can't believe I ever felt sorry for you! Stop it!"
"Sora…" Aerith said, very slowly. Her voice trembled slightly, but otherwise, she sounded very calm. "Please, calm down. I can't heal you if you're panicking—"
"Then don't heal me!" Sora snapped. "I don't care! I deserve the pain!"
Aerith did a double take.
"Sora! You do not—"
"I don't care!"
Aerith let out a long sigh. Leon sent her a look she didn't see, because she wasn't facing him.
"Sora, listen to me," Aerith said. Tifa envied her for being able to remain this calm. "It's alright—"
"No! It's not alright!" he argued. "I'm tired of him using me to hurt other people! He needs to learn that this isn't okay!"
"And just how is harming yourself teaching him a lesson!" Tifa shouted. She felt slightly bad for shouting, for butting in, but if Sora was anything like Cloud, then shouting was really the only thing that was going to get through to him. Plus, she was starting to get annoyed.
Sora stared at her.
"Who are we talking about!" Yuffie asked.
"Sora's Shadow…" Leon replied. He still sounded pretty angry.
"He can't feel your pain, Sora," Tifa continued. "If he could, he wouldn't have done this to you!"
With the 'this', she gestured across Sora's face, at the gaping wound in the skin, a wound which was still bleeding, still oozing darkness in spots. Of course, it was only a guess that Sora's Shadow had been the one to attack Sora and leave this mess, but, given the context of the entire situation, he seemed like a pretty reasonable guess.
"But, but I—" Sora began.
Tifa wouldn't hear it.
"If you think you deserve pain, then fine! I'll punch you in the face later if it'll make you feel better."
"Tifa!" Aerith protested.
Tifa ignored her and pressed on. "But this wound is too large to be gambling with! Do you want to lose sight in your left eye?"
Sora fidgeted.
"Well… no…"
"Then shut up and let Aerith heal you."
Sora didn't argue after that.
Tifa sighed with exhaustion, and after patting Leon on the shoulder, headed for the kitchen to… get herself some hot chocolate, maybe? Honestly, she didn't know why she headed to the kitchen. But, since she was there, she figured she might as well do something.
"Y'know," Cid said, coming in and leaning against the counter. "I wasn't actually plannin' on comin' downstairs. But, man, am I glad I did."
Tifa raised her eyebrows at him. "What, did you enjoy me yelling at Sora or something?"
Cid scratched his chin. "Well, if you wanna put it like that…" he muttered.
Tifa stared.
"You enjoy watching me yell at people?" she asked in disbelief.
Cid merely shrugged.
Tifa shook her head in disbelief, and then, deciding that making hot chocolate was really more effort than it was worth (considering she hardly wanted it, anyway), she poured herself a glass of water.
"Well, anyway, Cid, you're good at fixing things, aren't you?" she said.
Cid frowned.
"Wha' kinds of things?"
"Well." She paused to put the water jug back in the fridge. "The chain of Sora's necklace broke, and I thought maybe you could—"
"I can look at it. I can't make any promises."
"Thanks. I'm sure Sora appreciates it, too."
"Yeah, yeah," Cid replied with a wave of his hand as he left the kitchen.
Tifa sighed and then followed after him.
The front room was surprisingly empty, now. Only Leon and Sora were still in there, perhaps not the best decision on Aerith's part, but then again, now that Sora had stopped taunting her, he was most likely safe from Leon's wrath. And Aerith knew Leon better than Tifa did…
Sora had been bandaged, and was now sitting with his head in his hands. Leon was rubbing his own head in classic Leon style, but he looked up as Cid and Tifa entered the room.
"Yuffie said she was going to go back to bed," he explained. "And Aerith's trying to get the blood out of Sora's shirt."
Cid sat down where Yuffie had been sitting previously and picked up Sora's necklace from the coffee table. He turned it over in his hands, muttering to himself about it.
"Well, you can go back to bed if you want, Leon," Tifa said. "Thanks, uh, for your help."
He grunted, rubbed at his head again, then nodded. "Yeah, I guess I will…" he said. When he got up, though, he headed for the laundry room, probably to check on Aerith.
Tifa sat down where he had been sitting. After a moment, she asked Sora:
"Is something wrong?"
He glanced up at her.
"I feel… numb, on the inside," he said, slowly. "Like… like something's missing."
She frowned.
"Do you have any idea what you might be missing?"
He shook his head.
"I just feel… empty."