(( A/N: I apologise to everyone - I've had a really rough time of it, but hopefully, you haven't all deserted me! I know this is only short, but it's a start back towards the stories of Tifa and Aerith and their life together ever after. Bhryn xx ))

Heart Less Love

Chapter Nine: Fears

A little fear will control the minds of the common people…

The darkness swallowed her up with every step she took closer to the centre of the corridor, the apex where ahead laid all the secrets she was trying to reach out for without knowing how to reach or what her fingers might touch. Behind her, the awareness of her friends faded from her mind and on impulse she turned around.

But where she may have expected to see shadows and nothing, they were there, walking towards her with slow speed as befit those lost in the darkness.

Aerith wrinkled her brow, confused as to why they were moving but there was nothing there in her mind as there always had been, little knots of colour and consciousness that she had always labelled and known as each of her friends. It was all gone; the colours that had supported her every day vanished from her life without as much as a by-your-leave.

Fighting the sensation of being alone, she turned and started walking back towards the apex when a voice behind her stopped her dead in her tracks, so quickly that she wavered on that strange point between walking and moving.

"Aerith," Cloud said from behind her, but his voice despite being his, was stricken with a massive degree of dispassionate calm, "Don't go into the darkness alone. I will protect you."

"Aerith," Tifa said from just beside him, her eyes staring through the Ancient, "I will always be there so you don't have to do anything."

"Ancient," grated the voice of Cid, resting his pike on the floor, "You can do anything but now you don't have to do anything because we'll do it for you."

"G-guys?" she stammered, looking from face to face fearfully. They surely didn't mean what they said?

"Big Sister," Yuffie said, from behind her now. How had the girl sneaked there? Oh, that's right… she was a Ninja after all and she was used to sneaking around people. "Let us take the pain, let us live for you."

"But I'm alive," Aerith exclaimed.

"But you are dead," Vincent whispered, the dark shadow beyond her, "You are dead and there is only Aerith the Saviour, Aerith the Ancient… there is no Aerith to live her own life."

"Stories and dreams and hopes, all pinned on," her partner said tonelessly, those eyes a beautiful ruby red, "You are those, you are those now. You don't have to do anything."

"I'll protect you," Cloud repeated stubbornly, reaching for her arm.

Without thinking, she gave a cry and jerked away and backed directly into Yuffie who snapped a hand about her slender wrist, bangles jangling with the sudden aggressive motion. Aerith stared helplessly at her friends, tears coming to her eyes. This was a nightmare, it had to be? How could they turn on her like this?

…all she wanted was the freedom of her own life, her second chance…

"But I'm alive now," she sobbed, "I want to live for myself."

"You can't," they all said, softly chanting their own little lines to her as she slumped helplessly in the hands of Yuffie and with hopeless eyes watched them all close in…

His steps slowed with the silence that ate up the darkness, staring with wide eyes into the nothingness that consumed the world now. From the shadows there stared two eyes of brilliant green, directly at him.

"You know what your problem is, Strife?"

"…"

"Your problem is that everything you ever wanted, someone took away from you."

Cloud bent his head a little, eyebrows furrowing his forehead, a smooth expanse of skin wrinkling under his confusion. "I don't think that's true at all."

"Isn't it? Soldier took Tifa away from you, I took your family away from you…and Tifa, she took Aerith away from you. All that's left is the bitter taste of defeat in your mouth, a metallic taste like coppery blood from where you bite your tongue against crying out."

"That's not true at all... I don't have any control over how… over how Aerith feels…" He casually and slowly shook his head from side to side. "Nor do I control how things work out."

"If only you'd had the courage to stand on your own and speak out. If you had done, maybe she would love you… isn't there always something standing between you and love?"

"Love…"

The demon from his nightmares stepped from the blackness, a wing hanging from his shoulder as his memories always painted him, draped in the shadows and his pale hair glinting despite no real definable light source. The eyes glowed green, a green of power and a green of seething vicious hate.

"Love, Strife, makes this world go around… what will you do about it?"

"Do?"

Rich laughter mocked him from every side, deep and mellifluous it rang on his ears so much that he covered them, dropping his sword. Sephiroth reached from behind him, hands prying his from ears to lean in and press his lips close, whispering in darkest tones possible for any human to ever insinuate anything, "Do, Strife, do something. Stop being the puppet of destiny all your pathetic life and take control… what is it that you want?"

"I want…"

His blue eyes bored into the darkness, "I…want…"

"All this time and you haven't changed a bit. Is that because of the chaos gene?"

He turned, looking across his shoulder at the pale, almost luminescent figure of a woman looking at him, clothed in white finery as if laid for a wedding or a funeral. Her face was calm and serene but marked with a passage of sadness. Eyes of blue looked through him, to his very soul where she had laid her fingerprints so long ago.

"You're still the beautiful young man I saw so long ago."

"…Lucrecia…"

"Are you not going to ask me then?"

"…"

"I hear you waiting to ask me every time you sleep, every time you close your eyes, it echoes in the beating of your heart." She came closer, a strip of light in the darkness, "So why don't you ask me now?"

"…Forgive me?"

"For what?"

He paused and looked at her, tilting his head, could she be so serious?

She looked back, impassive and smooth like the face of a marble statue, "Vincent, what for? It was I who helped do this to you. It was I who caused the madness of Deep Ground… in forgiveness; you have nothing to seek from me."

"Then…" He closed his eyes, "What was I sleeping to atone for?"

"…"

As silence greeted his words, he opened his eyes to see another figure standing where Lucrecia had been, a man of a medium height with slicked back black hair and moon spectacles that glinted with light but never revealed the cold and calculating eyes behind them, eyes of a dull green-black, much of the same as a snakes.

"Hojo."

"You spent your life waiting to kill me… you spent so long waiting for the chance, and it slips you by. Maybe you atone for that now… your life, this curse, which is your everlasting punishment…"

"My punishment?"

"You will forever be punished, Vincent Valentine, and when the stars are gone, you will still writhe in the fires of sin."

Vincent looked away and down at the metal arm, flexing his fingers gently with golden light flickering back up at him, "My life is… my sin?"

"Come home right now!"

She winced deeply, hearing the bite of the voice she could remember from her earliest childhood, the voice that was never content unless bellowing orders out as if on some military practise ground. It set her teeth right on edge!

"Go away," Yuffie scowled at the darkness behind her, marching forward resolutely. When had everyone suddenly lost her in this darkness? Honestly, she would have to start tying string to them just so they didn't keep running away from her.

"You have duties, responsibilities…"

"Yeah, well so did you and look what happened with you in charge, old man!"

"Why did the Gods curse me with such a disrespectful daughter?"

"Why did they give me a father who doesn't know how to protect his own honour!"

"You will be ruler, you must conform!"

"Conform this, old geezer," she muttered, turning around with her fuuma-shuriken of similar name, Conformer, so she had named it for the memories of her heritage. But she brandished it pointlessly at the shadows behind her, for there was no one there.

Confused, as it was painting her face plainly, she dropped her martial stance and tilted her head quizzically. "All…righty…then…"

"GO HOME!"

The shout in her ear made her shriek and jump forward several paces, but when she came to stopping it was only because her clothes had suddenly changed. Instead of her sleek ninja clothes, she was garbed in kimono and obi, the sash tied tightly about her waist to the point of cutting off her ability to breathe. Her face felt stiff with makeup and formal attire, her feet awkward in the standard sandals of a lady and her hair draw painfully back into a tight style fashionable in Wutai.

Squeaking in alarm, she tried to tear the clothes off, but as she tugged harder they grew tighter to her body, suffocating her even and she fell down to her knees in fright. Stubbornly tugging away at the neckline, she pitched face first into the dirt of the cavernous corridor floor, looking up with tears in her eyes.

"Father, please," she begged to the shadows, "I don't want any of this, I want…"

"You want what?"

"…I…want…"

He stubbed his cigarette out on the floor and wiped at his face, damned cobwebs always seemed to get everywhere. Why were there always cobwebs in creepy corridors? Couldn't they come up with something original for once, for pity's sake?

Moving forward a few steps, the sudden tiredness that swept over him was almost crippling and he ground the butt of his weapon into the sandy floor to keep himself upright. Ahead of him, the others were quickly walking away into the darkness.

"Wait," he said, "Just give me a moment."

"We don't have a moment," threw back Cloud.

"Just a moment…" he gasped and forced himself onward two more steps, only to come to a wheezing, shuffling stop, strands of grey hair falling down into his face. His blue eyes gazed at them myopically, the soft grey shifting as he tilted his head.

Wasn't his hair blond?

Looking down to where his hands gripped the shaft of his fearsome pike weapon, he could see the blotches of liver-spots that came with advancing age, even in the darkness, and his eyes widened in surprise. "…why am I like this," he groaned into the dim light of the cavernous corridor, leaning until he was forced to crouch slowly, bones complaining loudly with cracks and crunches as he did so.

"You're too old now," Vincent said softly, passing him by. Yuffie was one step behind him, sprightly shifting from foot to foot.

"I'm not too old; just need to get my breath… just need a moment…"

"Too old…"

…and he wheezed tiredly…

She walked a few steps, and then stopped.

Unsure why, Tifa looked over her shoulder and saw the shadows, shadows that lacked definable figures of her friends, walking behind her towards that common and distant goal of knowledge. Instead, just the darkness yawned there tiredly. Her dark eyes came back to look before her, at the Ancient who was only steps in front of her.

"Aerith," she said softly.

"Tifa, what is it?" the woman turned to look her in the eyes.

Such beautiful eyes, she mused, watching her as her head was tilted in that bird-like way she had, making her seem far younger than she was, innocent even.

"I was thinking… no, it doesn't matter."

"Of course it matters."

"…I love you, you know this, don't you? I love everything about you… so even if what happens here changes everything… I just need you to know, I'd still love you."

"Tifa," she breathed, and then smiled, "…I know."

In the darkness there was a rush of footsteps and before Tifa had the ability to will her muscles into action, she was splashed in blood. It was warm and stuck to her body, dripping from her chin and fingertips, staining her skin black in the shocking darkness. In front, Aerith looked down at the blade in her middle, then up again in surprise.

"…a sin for a sin…" a voice murmured.

"Sephiroth… no…" Tifa choked, fumbling quickly for the cure materia she had been given, but coming up empty handed. The blade was drawn out even as she fumbled uselessly at her pockets and slowly she stumbled forward.

"Tifa…" coughed the Ancient.

"No, no… no…" she reached out for her and…

…Aerith vanished through the bloody fingers that tried to grasp onto her.

"…no…" gasped the fighter, falling to her knees, "…no…"

The clatter of Aerith's bracelets on the floor was deafening, but she couldn't find the tears in her, instead only shock raged inside her mind. Shock, anger, fury, all of it.

…and that was when she heard it.

Your fear is not a fear entirely for yourself.

"…I…" Tifa said dully, clutching her hands about her arms and rubbing them. There was no one else in the shadowy corridor apart from her and the lonely shape of Aerith's bracelets on the floor next to her. Slowly she reached out and picked them up, the light bouncing from them, what little light there was.

Tell me why.

"Because… shouldn't she be allowed a fair chance, finally? Shouldn't we have some peace and quiet, for once?"

This is the life of a Cetra. The will to struggle, to survive, to blossom and eventually to fade away. This is the natural course of things, even this world. To die and to live…

"Perhaps." Tifa smiled gently, "Perhaps it is as you say… but… Aerith is one of those who know the meaning, of what it is, to live and to die. Maybe not the meaning of life, but I would like her to have the time to figure out the meaning of other things. The meaning of why she always tilts her head when she is thinking, the meaning of Cloud's smile, the meaning of flowers and sunshine and the tides that pull in and out. I want her to have that time, to figure out what's important to her now… and I'm so afraid she'll never have the time for it. Because…" She sighed, "Because there's always someone who wants something more of her."

Enter.

"Huh… enter?"

The darkness suddenly lifted. The corridor revealed itself to her dumbfounded eyes, no longer rough hewn but smooth as if drilled by magic with the most loving of hands and practical of eyes. The stone was granite, speckled with countless chunks of crystal and gold, sparkling in the light that emanated from inside the wall itself.

It was beautiful…

At a far end was another door, set with a seal she could only just make out from this distance. Picking herself from the floor, casually noting that the blood had vanished from her somewhere in the interval, she began to make her way towards it.

As she did, her companions began to re-appear one by one, each looking thoroughly surprised or upset by whatever the voice had said to them. Even Aerith seemed slightly shaken, her hands clasped together before her and her face ashen in the strange light of the cavern.

"Aerith!" She said in relief, rushing to her side and ignoring the look of strange and sudden spite that Cloud gave them, before turning away with a sigh. "…you dropped this."

"Oh," stammered the Ancient, taking the bracelets, her wrists bare and looking ever more fragile. "I don't know when… it's all so strange."

"…did you hear the voice too?"

Aerith nodded as she put the metal bracelets back on, "…I think it's an old spell set to guard this place. I'm not entirely sure I gave it the answer it wanted."

"What answer was that?"

"…it doesn't matter… come on, the door to the inner sanctum is just ahead and we're all here together."

Tifa said nothing but felt bizarrely troubled as she watched the Ancient walk towards the doors, placing her cool hands onto the seal that adorned it. Her dark eyes moved to meet those of Vincent, of all people, and he simply looked her in the eye without dissembling, and she was sure he almost spoke.

"The truth."

…the truth of what?

"I just want my own life."

Your own life? You are Cetra, you live to serve.

"I… I just…"

A second grace is no gift for you alone. Think upon this. There are tasks beyond tasks for you to accomplish yet, Maiden, many tasks.

"Why can't you leave me alone!"

…why can't you accept it…?

"Fine, so I'm selfish! I'm being selfish for the first time in a long while! I just want to be with Tifa! Why, why, why! Give me my memories back if you want me to perform like a dog, running your errands, doing your tasks!"

The distant past is what you must concern yourself with, Maiden. Far back, farther than you can know.

"My name… is Aerith!"

...is it?

"…wh…what do you mean by that…?"