:: Heart Less Love ::

Each of us is something of a schizophrenic personality, tragically divided against ourselves. ~Martin Luther King, Jr

Part Twenty: Interlude

It was then and there and no other time in my life that I would seek the dark beast called Regret, I would curl by its side and croon a lovers tune to it. It welcomed me warmly to come and roast in the fires of a purgatory only I could make for myself. I gladly stayed and let my heart crack and burn, allowed the red blood to seep out and over-run my body and in the shallow breaths I heaved, stared into the darkness and broiled alive.

The strange monster Regret was a friend to me now, he rubbed against my legs and gave my headaches when I tried to think. I looked out at the world with eyes distorted by glasses as dark as the underbelly of the new moon, I chewed my names and chanted, "But what if, but what if..." and didn't answer those queries, and neither did my friend. His response was to take my hand and lead me off down the path he walked as a lovers lane and there wrack my soul with doubt and tear my mind with memories needle sharp, sharper than they ever had been.

I went because I was out of options, was this madness? Were those talons in my brain the beginning or the end? The beast, he said to me, let us go back to the start. To the very start, to things I heard about in stories and see there the history, the wonder and the lies and the beginning of my story.

As I am led as a lamb to the slaughter, I think callously of myself and my lips whisper into the darkness inhabited only by me, "It's not long now."

You know what I mean, you said it just so. You twisted and squirmed and in the end you couldn't avoid either your fate or your own nature. Well now, neither can I, neither am I capable of dodging a bullet. I am waiting for the end, and it isn't long now.

Tick... Tick... Tick...

"It wouldn't kill you to pick your stuff up off the floor."

Her mother wasn't a very tall woman, but she somehow managed to make the brandishing of toys a threat worthy of giving a second glance. Yuffie considered what she could even say, then turned her eyes quietly back to the doll she held in her hands. Across from her sat Yuri, the son of her father's closest friend. Yuri was a little older than she was, a year or two maybe.

Yuffie heard her mother cough intermittently as she scooped up toys and bedsheets. She had been coughing a lot lately.

She held the doll up to her ear, "What's that Ana? Yes, mommy is ill."

Yuri's face was a picture of mixed emotions, but clearly worry, his eyes darting to Yuffie's mother quickly then back to where Yuffie was unconcernedly putting a new dress on her doll. "Yuf," he said.

"It's okay Yuri," the woman said in her soft voice, "This is Yuffie's way of telling me that she thinks I should take more care of myself. Just clean up when you're done, and I will, okay sweetheart?"

Yuffie looked up at her mother, that beautiful face made more so with the light dappling in from outside. She felt an ache in her heart, an ache she couldn't explain. "Mom, sure."

When they were alone together, Yuffie put the toys away and then dragged Yuri by the hand to the window. "Yuri, look up."

He did as was asked, staring into the faces of the Da Chao. Yuffie's large ground house was one of few that could stare directly up into the mountain range. She stared up, just as intent, her cloudy eyes turned to steel. "I see the Gods."

Yuffie nodded, then climbed out of the window with the agility expected of a ninja in training, something all Wutai children did from a young age, no matter what clan they belonged to. Yuri hesitated, but Yuffie shook her head, "Come on."

"Yuf, what if your mom finds out?"

"Mom went to sleep, she's sick." Yuffie felt tears threatening so she turned her back on him, "Come on already!"

Yuri followed her out of the window, his more elaborate clothing presenting a difficulty in doing so. He was dressed for the formal visit, Yuffie had long since abandoned pretense of being interested in pretty clothes, and only held up to liking dolls to keep her mother happy. She was the wind in those trees outside of her window, she loved being outside and getting into trouble. She preferred playing like a boy than as a princess of her clan. Together, Yuffie helping to stuff some of the more ornate trappings into Yuri's belt, they began their way to the mountains. Along the way, Yuri found many opportunities to point out to Yuffie that what they were doing what really nothing good, no good could come of it, nothing that would make either of their parents happy, let alone Lord Godo who seemed to frighten everyone outside of clan Kisaragi spitless.

But in spite of his whining, or maybe to spite him for whining, they made it to the mountain, where she suddenly sat down, legs folded, at the edge of the circle of water beneath the great carved mountain, head tilted up so she could stare up at those faces. Every evening they lit tapers and whispered prayers but...

"Gods, Da Chao, please heal my momma," she clapped her hands together, then moved and pressed her face into the dirt. It soaked up her tears.

Yuri watched, then, he too sank to his knees next to her, "Da Chao, please heal Lady Kisaragi."

Together they chanted their childish prayers at the mountainside, wishing and hoping until the twilight came, and people came looking for them, to find two small children still kneeling at the Da Chao step, still praying and weeping. It took time to calm them and settle them into bed, but all Yuffie could think about was her momma.

"Mom..." she whispered as sleep stole in.

It was one of the villages well kept secrets, one so tightly knit into the fabric of silence that other clans didn't even know of it. Yuffie knew, of course, but it was a matter of pride for her. She helped out often at the small clinic, with bandages and ointments, watching the gentle hands spin magic from the air, healing wounds and kissing away pain. She loved the days that she was allowed to come here, and even more when she was finally told that she too could spin the magic the way her mother did so easily.

It wasn't easy. Nothing worthwhile ever is. She spent a lot of excessively frustrating hours staring hard at thin air, to the point where she felt dizzy and light-headed. She knew it had something to do with the natural forces in the world and being of high intelligence she reasoned out that spending time among the elements and meditating would maybe help her.

She wandered up mountain paths, along the crooked vales of trees and immersed herself underneath waterfalls of chilly water to try and seek the answers of nature and balance. That was the key, balance. Her mother had wisely told her, between sipping her herbal tea and coughing, that balance was all a person needed in the world, to make things happen. Good and evil lived in balance, as did order and chaos. When she had naively said that surely light would beat shadows, her mother had laughed and said, "Light creates shadows, does it not? You might illuminate enough but never so much as to erase a shadow."

She listened to the sounds of the world, to the sounds of people in the marketplace and the temples. She sometimes went outside of the village and tried to hear to whispering of animals and birds, sometimes the push and pull of the tide, breaking huge wages on the jagged cliffs close to her home. She would return each night to her room, and light the candles and tapers and pray for her mother's health, watching how the candle made shadows on the walls that danced and leaped, as if in a play. She would stare into those shadows for demons and devils, waiting with hands on her knees. But nothing came, only soft quiet.

Once, in the middle of the med clinic her mother ran, the sparks of light glittered on her fingertips and her heart swelled with joy. She rushed to show her mother, who looked so pleased, so delighted that Yuffie threw her arms about her. At only seven she was quickly becoming too tall, she was tall for a Wutai. "Momma," she whispered, "I did it!"

"Yes, you did, you did," her mother said sweetly, "But remember my darling, use it to heal never to harm."

"I promise!" Yuffie chirped, "Always! I swear it!"

Two and a half months later, the day was a cloudy one. The sky seemed to be darker than usual as she stood in her formal robes, hair tightly drawn up from her face despite her youth. Her father stood across from her, and without a word he turned and moved away through the beginning drizzle of rain.

She stood and watched him go, there were no words to be said between them, there was only bitterness. There was a foul taste in her mouth and nose, one that she couldn't bring herself to spit out. Instead, she clutched at her robe skirts.

"Yuffie," said Yuri at her side. He was ten now. He was older, much taller and growing into good looks, but he still spoke to her with such deference, "What should we do?"

"I don't know..."

"We prayed... so hard..."

"I know, I know, and I even... I even learned..." She bit her lower lip, tears running through the chalky makeup, hair coming loose in the steady drizzle of rain as she stared down at the grave marked with a simple headstone.

Kasumi Kisaragi

Wife, Mother and Beloved by All

Live with the stars now.

All of her hard work, for what?

Her mother was gone, illness had stolen her out from under her, just as the war was reaching its height, when more sick people would come to their clinic each day, when the battle would be on their doorstep. She gritted her teeth.

"I swear it..."

What was all this hard work for?

In the end, the war still broke against Wutai. I saw them, on the days ending of the brutal struggles between eastern and western powers. I saw the Soldier with the glowing blue eyes, his honest and surprised face. I told him I would beat him, I swore it. I had no other option but to do this.

I came back, sometimes, to my home and to my father. He was always working, too hard, too many wrinkles for a man too young. We rarely spoke and I knew why. It was because I looked almost exactly like my mother, a woman he had put on a pedestal above this dirty world and held his standards of love and adoration to her. I wasn't my mother and this hurt him more than I could ever say. It made me sad. He would never look at me and see his daughter. So I just stayed away from home, longer and longer each time. I ignored the cries of the masters, who insisted I learn more, do more, that one day I would be the leader of their clan.

I didn't want that.

I wanted to find out why the magic hadn't worked for me, why the prayers had seen fit to be ignored. Was the Da Chao unkind and un-listening? Why would they take my mother out of the world she loved so much?

I swore I would never use my powers to harm. I swore it.

Imagine my surprise when it was years later that I came upon you all in an ambush. There was a slight girl who spun magic the same way that my momma had. She moved her hands in more intricate circles and the power I felt flowing out of her like a waterfall was palpable and painful and sweeter than sugar. I was drawn to it intimately. Of course, I was also drawn to the materia. I couldn't seem to help myself, all I wanted was to hold it, to feel the words trapped inside, to see what wonders they could hold in the orb depths.

As we journeyed together, I accidentally let you see me use it. I didn't mean to, Honoured Daughter. It was to be a secret, my mother had drilled that into me, every day. Magic without materia was a secret. Magic without a visible source was a danger. If people knew my secrets then they would take me far away, and I would never see home again. But your face was blank, you pretended you hadn't seen me do it. I didn't quite know what to make of it, and every evening when I would clumsily help you to make a fire or fetch water, I would wait for some mention of it, any hint of the wonder you had seen a nobody create.

As we sat by the Cosmo Candle, you watched me through the flames.

Your eyes, they haunt me. Green, steady, searching.

Beautiful eyes, mesmerising in their frank open stares and bewitching with the mysteries that must lie beyond them. I wanted to know what kind of things you could be thinking about me, about the things I had done. I wanted to understand what it was that made you keep quiet. In the end, you looked away from everyone and declared yourself a loner, the outsider, the unknown quantity. I probably didn't even register on your scale of 'cetra-ness'.

And then you died.

I don't know what to think or feel, but not long after we were within close proximity to that Black Materia and suddenly I could hear my mother calling to me, suddenly you and my mother and the prayers all blended into one voice screaming inside my head. As time went on, I thought the pain would die out, that it was just grief or despair, that no one would ever be able to tell me what was going on in my life.

But here I am.

I am Jenova's child, as much as a child of the Cetra. I have cursed blood.

You too, return to the crime scene, and waded through darknesses of your own past to reach out to try and snatch me back from it all. But you are not the prayer I asked for. I did not weep on my knees in the dirt for you, Aerith.

Go home, be safe. But do not come near me.

Because I will kill you. Because I cannot control myself.

...because even out of pity, you wouldn't ever release me...

This was as good a time as any for a break.

They'd really pushed themselves hard all day and by now her feet were aching, and they all looked worse for wear. She found herself staring from face to face of her friends as they settled onto miscellaneous pieces of junk, drinking water and mopping brows with whatever clean bits of clothing they had, relatively speaking. Aerith wondered if they had all been this tired when fighting their way towards the Northern Crater. Is this how they had all felt on their way there, to that final fight, the last showdown.

Desperate.

That was the feeling inside her heart, it made her eyes water with terror. She wasn't a stranger to fear, she'd grown up hunted by ShinRa and tormented by their constant attempts to regain her into their custody. She'd lived a life controlled by an underlying hysteria that someday she would have to go back into that laboratory, where the men had no faces, where the needles were sharp and the tables cold and the only nature she saw was herself and the other poor specimens kept trapped in tubes. Her hands tightened on her arms, bending her head so her fringe would hide her face. She knew she couldn't control the panic rising in her throat.

And now Tifa was gone, now she had gone to the world where Aerith loathed, where all her nightmares lived. She was walking the dark ways and hidden paths, she was placing all her prayers and hopes on the single goal that she alone would be able to subvert this damage, that she could take away all the pain and change it all.

Wasn't it supposed to be her that went, not Tifa?

Why...?

"Aerith?"

She snapped her head up, wiping away tears in a flash. "Yes, sorry, what was it?"

"Water, you need to drink some," Cloud rattled the water skin at her so she took it gingerly in her fingertips. As he sat down beside her with a sigh, one of his arms came about her shoulder. She didn't move, as he softly said, "The last time I properly held you, I had to let you go."

Her eyes were brimming again. Would she have to do the same? Would her last embrace with Tifa be the one where she left her, let her fall away from the world? Was that all there could be in store for them, down in those depths? Loss? Death?

"Tifa's stronger than you think, Aerith. She didn't go into this blindly."

"She went into this for me though, didn't she?"

"Yes, she did." Cloud smiled, "When Tifa was a little girl, she was all about herself. Her mother dying probably had a lot to do with it, and the events of Nibelheim likely hardened her further. Even though she saved me, I'm sure it was self motivated to begin with, before you began to melt her icy walls. Now, she's a grown woman. I see her as a woman, not a rippled image of a dream. She sees you as someone who made her capable of being normal, as normal as we get."

"I didn't do anything special," Aerith protested, looking numbly at the water skin.

"Didn't you? You loved her. I think that's special enough."

"Love is?"

"It makes the world go around. And to Tifa, you are her entire world. Remember that." Cloud squeezed her shoulders in a friendly manner, "Once, I could have said the same. Not now, but you are maybe... the sunlight on my world. Everything in my world exists because of you."

"Cloud, really..." she was crying now, dropping the skin and covering her eyes, "I don't know if I can do this!"

"You can."

"I can't!"

"You can, and you will, because you'd never let her down."

He was right. She could never let her down, or let her go. She could never walk away from the amount of trust placed in her. She scrubbed furiously at her eyes. Glancing about at everyone, she stood upright and brushed her skirts off, dislodging Cloud's arm. A swipe of her hand had snatched up her staff, the Princess Guard. How long had it been since she had even held it?

… a sigh of relief.

That was the rush of air out of her lungs. Tifa lay silent on the bed apart from the soft rise and fall of her chest to indicate she was sleeping. Aerith passed a hand over Tifa's face lovingly, then it moved to pick up the red materia she had left on the bed stand. It glowed in the dark, casting orange and crimson lights across her face. Titan; a mighty giant, a force of strength.

"I don't do this lightly, you know," she said to the bed, to the woman sleeping on it peacefully and blissfully. "I do this with a heart so heavy it should break. I do this because you're all I..." she choked.

Covering her mouth her free hand picked up her staff. It was beautiful in design, with crystals and delicately carved flowers and vines, inlaid with silver, gold and diamonds. Looking at it, she could imagine how her magical power intensified as she channelled through it. No, this was the right way to do it. It could only endanger her friends, and her lover.

"...it's the only way, Tifa, I'm so sorry," Aerith bent over and kissed Tifa's smooth cheek, and whispered, "Soon. It won't be long now... be strong..."

"Be strong," she said aloud.

They all looked up at her and she realised that she had burst out with those two words from an awkward silence. Blushing, she clutched harder at the carved staff. "I mean it, it's not going to be pretty down there. Down there, is death. You'll see Yuffie at her worst, you'll see radiation sickness, and she'll tell you things you'll hate to hear. She'll scream at you, hate you and even wish death upon you. She will injure us in any way she can, to preserve herself and the Jenova blood inside her, killing her mind and senses. I don't know exactly what I am supposed to do but... I will do something. I'll save her, somehow. Be strong, and stay with me. Please!"

The last came out as an unintended shout, but Cloud stepped up to her side. "Of course."

Cid laughed and nodded, "Aerith, we've always been with you, we always will be. You're our precious friend, and to me you're like the kid sister I never had."

"We will be together, until the end. This time, allow us to accompany you, we will be your strength, Aerith," Vincent's eyes glowed with unshakeable trust. She hadn't known the phone line was active, but the crackling voices of her friends missing came to her ears, flooding her with support.

Reeve. Barrett. Marlene and Denzel. Red. Her mother. Rufus, Tseng, Reno and the rest of them.

She nodded, "Thank you. Then... it's time."

Turning swiftly, she marched resolutely into the shadows of the doorway, with her friends, her dearest companions at her back, helping her to light the darkened way.

"Pheeeeew!" Tifa stopped in the narrow passage, hands on her knees and feeling her muscles ache, "It's so dark down here. I can't see my hand in front of my face, didn't help that I lost the torch a few corridors back, eh?"

Her wolf companion lolled his tongue at her in the way he did when laughed, most likely at her.

"Yeah, I know, I-"

She went silent instantly. She hadn't imagined it, there, another one just after. Footfalls, the sound of things dragging and moving. Pursing her lips and breathing through her nose as quietly as she could, Tifa flattened herself to the wall. Around the corner of the previous crossroads she saw a flood of light moving about, checking purchase, trying to see the path ahead. She glanced to where Zack was in the pitch black, the only hint of him being that light glistening off his blue eyes.

It could be the guys, they probably woke up quickly, I wasn't ever much of a materia user...

The light rounded the corner, blaring into their faces and she lifted her arms to shade her eyes and protect her night-accustomed vision from the sudden glare. She heard a hissing chuckle of laughter, as whomever it was drew closer to her. "Hello? Who is it?"

"Oh, you're her girlfriend, aren't you... how wonderful this is. We haven't formally met, but I'm sure you know all about me..." the torchlight moved, coming to rest under the chin of a man. His left face side was normal, and unremarkable; it was the right side that had her attention, mutated beyond recognition with pulsating boils and odd little tentacles draping down the neck and towards the chest. The man wore a surgical lab coat and he was grinning with half a mouth, the rest an open morass of sharpened teeth. "I'm Doctor Faben..."

Aerith killed him, he was dead... but... Jenova could regenerate too... shit...

"Jenova," she whispered.

"That's right, the mutating cells of Jenova are quite remarkable things, enough to prevent complete death. It put me in a state of near death, repairing my body as best the cells could do. I have to say, tentacles are quite last season..." the doctor was advancing on her, she felt frozen in fear. "I know Aerith will be coming, not only for the other scion and the materia, but for you. Whilst I relish the chance to murder the little bitch, I don't mind destroying her heart first!"

She braced herself, the right arm was a vast trunk of meat, a tentacle covered in barbs. It lashed out at her, driving her into the wall of the corridor and through it – apparently it had a very thin wall. She reached out as she fell, only to see the wolf leaping on Faben. The fall took longer than she had expected, her backpack was loose and falling alongside her. She was falling... she watched the darkness recede as green light overtook it.

Was this dying?

Aerith... I'm sorry...

Tifa closed her eyes, waiting for the final dispersion of her soul.

Instead, she slammed into the hard floor, her backpack landing beside her and the contents of it scattering all over the floor, from basic materia, to cloths, food and even first aid supplies. Her PHS and GPS went skittering over the rocky edge into the flood of the Lifestream.

Tifa grabbed at her ribs and whistled out air. She had most certainly cracked some. After a few moments of writhing around in agony, she came to a stop when she saw the feet planted firmly on the ground, before the river of the glowing Lifestream. The black silhouette didn't move, it seemed to be staring down at her, with glowing pale eyes.

"...Oh shit, just great," she groaned.

Yuffie laughed.