:: Heart Less Love ::
No bonds attached him to this life, and the only thing he would regret leaving is the Sky.
Kendo Yoshida
Part Twenty-One: Deliverance
"Did you just fall out of the sky?" Yuffie looked up.
Tifa took several long breaths, trying to feel out the extent of the damage the fall had done to her. Her right side felt fiery, and painful when she breathed, it wasn't a particularly good sign. All being said however, Yuffie was more interested in staring up at where Tifa had come falling from. The young ninja was dishevelled. The travelling cloak was torn in various places and the usually pristine knee high socks and boots were scuffed and muddy. Knees were torn and the tanktop with the zipped waistcoat had seen better days, spattered with blood and mud. About her neck was a long scarf that ended in tatters. The youthful face of Yuffie was marked with vacancy and sometimes, madness – the skin burned in places and the nose recently broken, still bloodied; her hair was longer and wildly ruffled with twigs and dirt, but the eyes of Yuffie glowed an eerie grey-silver, wide and childlike.
"I thought it would be nice to come in style," Tifa joked, getting to her knees, then onto her feet crouching. A quick look about her identified which materia had fallen where. She made a quick mental map of where to dash, then took in her surroundings as quickly. The area where she and Yuffie were stood was a plateau of rock with various stalagmites and stalactites. The teeth of the cavern glittered with hidden veins of precious metals and gems, and provided plenty of cover. On one side was the river of pure Lifestream energy. Behind, towards the back, was a darker area, the way out of this strange place. "You know how I can be, looks like I lost my balance a little. Not quite the ten point landing huh?"
"Not really," Yuffie laughed again, it was a shattering kind of sound.
"Well... Yuffie... how are you doing?"
"Doing?" The ninja peered at her, "Huh, you're not who I thought it was going to be."
"Isn't that a terrible disappointment." Tifa watched her carefully.
"Is she coming?"
"Of course she will be, you know how Aerith is."
"Yes, of course," Yuffie's face twisted with some kind of internal agony, turning her back on Tifa briefly. "What? No... she'll come, of course she will. Mom, just wait... just wait a little longer... like the moon on a lake, I am waiting..." and broke off into laughter.
Tifa's hair on the nape of her neck made every effort in concert to stand on end and attempt to crawl off her skin. Shivering, she carefully scraped up the close by materia and began to click them as quickly into place on her gloves as she could, eyeing the intricate heart design on the back of her hands, the vicious ridges of metal. Fire materia, absorb materia, health materia and a sense materia.
...People throw things away...
She smiled to herself, continuing to watch as Yuffie argued with herself and the air around her. It was fairly obvious to Tifa that Yuffie was more than simply unbalanced. It was worse than schizophrenia, it was if there was an outside force crushing down on the personality that Tifa knew from the young woman. Brushing her hands on her knees, she cradled her side, carefully pacing around a little bit to get a feel of the footing on the floor.
"Tifa," Yuffie said suddenly, "I'm going to die down here."
"That's not true, Yuffie, we're going to make things all better." Tifa clenched her fist, "That's what Aerith is coming here to do, right?"
"Yes... yes..." Yuffie bowed her head, back still to Tifa, "But you're not here for that are you?"
Tifa chose that moment to launch herself, muscles in her legs bracing as she sprang into action. Two quick steps and her right hand was engulfed in flames as she leaped into Yuffie. The ninja girl was caught turning and the plated fist struck her hard across the cheek, snapping her head back and staggering her. Tifa came to a skidding stop.
Yuffie clamped a hand to her bleeding cheek, shaking her head and training her oddly glowing eyes on Tifa, "That's right, you're not here for that at all, you're here to kill me."
Tifa just smiled tightly.
"She was everything to me, how could I just let her walk away?"
Concentrating was proving difficult. She relied on Vincent in the lead to keep them from falling into direct danger, clutching onto Cloud and Cid when she stumbled along behind them. But she wasn't the only one.
"These ghosts can kiss my ass," Cid snarled, "Don't they have better things to be doing?"
"I'm more interested in what they're saying," Cloud retorted, "Haven't you been listening to them? It's quite sad."
"What's quite sad is your rambling boy."
Aerith blinked as much as she could. Sometimes people would appear around them as they walked down the corridor, whispering and talking, bowing to things that weren't there, walking through the walls, down or up through the floor or ceiling. It was entirely strange. It was the first time the entire group had been witness to these images, but Aerith wasn't a stranger to them at all. It had been a while since she'd seen her first true ghost, but she recalled it easily enough.
He was a man of average height with a face made of kindness. His eyes were so sad, as he came over to where she turning over a patch of dirt in her green smock. She stopped, holding up the little trowel and trying to see him a little more clearly.
"Hey mister," she said gravely, "I can see the sunshine through you."
He laughed, but it was a wispy kind of sound, the sound of a funfair from a distant wind. "Oh can you now?"
"Mmmhmmm," she nodded her head.
"You are so beautiful, Elmyra and I wanted children so much."
"Do you know my mom?" She looked at him seriously, "I mean, she's not my real mom but my new mom, she's taking care of me. I love her, very much. So do you, don't you?"
"Yes," the man said, kneeling next to her, "I loved her with all my heart, and will continue to do so."
"Are you going away?"
"You should know, little Aerith, you have the magic in you," a transparent finger touched her chest, over her heart, "Here. You know it's true. You can feel it when you speak, when you laugh or smile. I will return to the Lifestream and you will be happy here. Grow lots of flowers, make people happy. Tell Elmyra I love her. I cannot go to her, but you can. I'm really sorry..." He was crying.
Aerith was unsure what she should do, so she just nodded, "Sure. I guess you'd have been my daddy then. I'll take care of her."
"Thank you..." and he was gone. Just like that. As young as she was, Aerith knew immediately he had been a ghost, a spirit of someone her foster mother loved deeply; her husband, far away in a war that he hadn't cared for. He hadn't made it home. She brushed the dirt from her knees, and with a flower in hand, decided to go home and be with Elmyra, she'd need all the comfort she could get right now...
"I wonder," she said softly, "What are they looking for around here?"
"Aerith," Cloud asked, "Is this what it's like for you?"
She nodded, despite the darkness they were in, adding vocally, "Yes. They visit sometimes, with wishes and words that never had the chance to be said otherwise. I take them and calm them, before they can move on."
"Move on?"
"To the Lifestream, to a new beginning."
"Well, I'm sure that's all well but it's so cree-!"
There was air and light. She lurched forward, having been putting some of her weight on Cloud's shoulder. The floor opened up into a sort of dim light and dust. Cid's arm was about her waist, the pilot having prevented her from falling into the hole. Out of the dust she could just make out the sprawling figures of Cloud and Vincent.
"Cloud! Vincent!" she cried out.
It looked like an underground laboratory of some sort, with panels and boards, the type you can wipe on and wipe off with special pens. There were projector units, cages and tables and desks stacked with research notes, some strewn onto the floor with the pairs ungraceful entrance from the ceiling high above the laboratory. She coughed, "Guys!"
"It's alright, we're okay," Vincent said, "Keep going, we'll find a way to meet up."
"But Faben'll be around here too," She called down.
"Then we'll just have to kick him about a bit before we meet up," Cloud sounded overconfident, as usual. She smiled. "Get going, Tifa's waiting."
Tifa.
"Right!" She replied, "Don't be late!"
Cid was looking at her as she pulled back from leaning over the new opening in the floor. She huffed and wiped her face, holding onto her stick tightly as if it would prevent her from simply collapsing out of fright. Where they were right now had been a long expanse of corridor, running between and around the laboratories where a lot of the Deepground research had been done. To the other side of where they had been walking towards was an off-shoot corridor, running away from the hole and more towards the ground with a downward run to it.
"That way," she said.
"Yeah. You okay?"
Aerith nodded, then retorted with as much tartness as she could manage, "And you, Grandpa?"
Cid gave her a scowl, his way of appreciating humour, "Coping."
"Besides, she's down this way," Aerith murmured. It was true, she could feel her, like a heartbeat leading her deeper in. It was warm and consistent, a constant in her mind. It filled her with love, with hope and banished her dread for the moment she concentrated on it. "I can feel her, like the earth under my feet."
"Feel her, huh?"
"She's there, she's waiting... and all I have to do is go to her side." Aerith closed her eyes, then looked across at Cid, "I know, it sounds mad, it might even be mad but..."
"Tifa is there, right? So stop lolly-gagging," Cid brushed past her with a snort, "I'll go first, age before beauty. Plus, can't ever tell if that floor is gonna give up the ghost again – not you!" he snapped to one of the apparitions that moved out of the wall in front of him then turned and went back through the wall. He started off down that new route, huffing and grumbling to himself. She hid a smile.
She enjoyed his no- nonsense personality and his easy way of dealing with the strange things about her that tended to put so many off. That was probably why she would choose him when...
"Are you coming or what!"
"Sorry!" She gave herself a little shake, and with a last glance at the new opening, ran as best she could down the off-shoot corridor after Cid, feeling the darkness close back in around her. But the thrum of a steady heart was that which kept her moving and urging him onward. She was there... she was there!
They'd stood like this, waiting for the other to move for too long since Tifa had tried to break Yuffie's cheekbone with her fist, a feat that had gone unrewarded. Yuffie just looked bruised, and a little worn, but that was all. Those silver-ice eyes were latched onto her with the same intensity that an eagle might stare down at a mouse with, yum, dinner.
"How old were you," Tifa said softly, "When you knew that you were different?"
"How old... I was a kid. I was barely more than out of playing with dolls to keep my elders happy, to keep me out of trouble. I knew before I wept at the feet of the Da Chao, I knew before I attended clinic with my mother. I could see the seasons move and see the people and world move with them." Yuffie smiled, it was completely at odds with her intense stare; the smile was so sad and so sweet. "I saw the tide of war, I saw it break and fall upon us all. I saw sand and stone, brick and mortar, trees bent beneath the rage of a faceless enemy. I swore..."
"What, to take revenge?"
"Yes! ...No..." Yuffie gripped her head, "No, it wasn't like that. Not at first. I was so angry, I was so helpless and so angry. Why her? Why did it have to be her? Why did I have to be alone?"
"Who?"
"Momma..." Yuffie's eyes glazed briefly.
Tifa took this as her chance, a second chance. She snapped forward three spaces, threatening Yuffie's midriff with a foot, then twirling around and adding a second kick to the space where the ninjas head had been a moment before. Tifa back flipped as two kunai slammed into the dirt where she had been, one chopping into the ground with such intensity that it cracked stone. Hurrying, she flung herself behind a pillar of rock as the flash of lightning roared past where she had been.
"Momma died," Yuffie's voice said, from the shadows above her. "Momma left. She didn't tell me what I was to do, if there were others like me. I knew I would be alone, one way or another. I swore I wouldn't do it, but I broke my most precious promise..."
"Promise? Just one?" Tifa adjusted the materia on her glove, crawling to peer around the side of rock outcropping. "You broke promises to a lot of people."
"This one mattered!" Yuffie appeared out of the inky shadows next to where Tifa was with a flying elbow that sent her slamming into the ground. As her face skidded across the stone, Tifa grabbed at one of the kunai, wrenching it free and throwing it back at Yuffie. It caught in her cloak and the force took Yuffie with it, back into shadows that seemed to eat her up.
Tifa came to her feet, rubbing her face to clear blood from clotting her eye. Using shadows to move about was a very neat trick indeed, probably an enhanced one of those that were taught to ninja in the Kisaragi clan. "Don't we matter, Yuffie?"
"You did! You did once!" Yuffie's voice sounded strangled, there was weeping involved. Self torture was the worst kind, Tifa knew that. Her heart weighed heavy with sympathy, once she had been as despicable as Yuffie was now, drowning in that hate and fear, weighed down by everything she had no control over in life and left adrift, reaching out to anything to stop herself from drowning. "You all mattered to me, I loved you all – my family, my new family..."
"We love you too Yuffi-"
"NO!" The shriek almost burst her eardrums, a deafening wave of sonic vibrations that made her stumble backwards and lose her balance. Yuffie was there in an instant, weight pushing down atop her as they fell, hands gripping Tifa's hair. "No, then why did you come to kill me! WHY!"
Tifa pushed her feet out as she landed. It launched Yuffie overhead, but her hands, still entangled in Tifa's dark locks ripped them out. Tifa screamed in pain as the ninja continued her flight, turning over just in time to get a fist from the brunette fighter directly to her face. Yuffie continued being thrown backwards, tottering on the edge of the plateau.
"I came to kill you, because Aerith won't. Because I love her enough to do the shit she doesn't need to dirty her hands with," Tifa punched out again, blood streaming down the sides of her face. "Because-"
Yuffie caught her hand and brought her knee up to Tifa's middle. It slammed into her ribs and she could feel them creak in agony, the pain shooting up through her spine and jamming her teeth together against a moan. She would not give Yuffie the satisfaction of hearing her pain. The next blow she took as well, to the kidneys, doubling over, but the third one she was ready for and twisted Yuffie's arm, bending it to force the tightly held kunai from quickly numbing fingers. "I said... Because I love you enough to do it too."
Yuffie sobbed, "Help me, please... please... just DIE!"
The force of the lightning bolt threw her away from the plateau edge and rolling, side over side, to a stop by a collection of rock formations. Quivering, Tifa laid there a moment, watching Yuffie from that distance. Her magic was so strong, it was stronger than anything Tifa had ever known previously from the ninja. "Yuffie," she whispered.
"Just a bunch of crap," Cloud muttered, kicking at the broken elevator doors.
Vincent was staring up at the open ceiling. Cloud wandered over and nudged the taller man, "Unless you have a ladder hidden in your scarf, we're not getting up there."
"No, maybe not, but I can't think of another way out of here."
Cloud sighed, this wasn't going at any shape of heroic that he had imagined. He was thought that they'd all end up there, fighting together for the sake of their world, one more time, one more chance. He'd have been able to do it this time, with a heart healed and a clear view of what his future could possibly be. Instead he was stuck in a dusty old lab next to the worlds more stoic man. There had to be somewhere else.
Leaving Vincent to his musings, Cloud began to stamp about through the lab, testing the floor as he went. "So, Vincent..."
"Hmm?"
"...when did you first fall in love with her?"
"When did you?"
Cloud glanced at the man, who looked lost in a serious line of thinking, staring intently back. Cloud shrugged a little, "I'd love to say it was the moment I met her, but I think it was before that. Zack would talk of her, so much, so often. This wonderful girl back home, the one he loved so much, he couldn't wait to see her, just wait til I did..."
Zack.
Wasn't it funny, his eyes filling up with tears. "It felt like, I'd traded my best friend for the best girl in the world, and she didn't even love me the way I did her. I'm fine, right now, as I am. I love her, as she is. One day, I'll find someone else, but knowing she is safe and happy, that's love too. I can bear that..." He laughed, "Besides, Zack would crawl out of his... his grave... if he thought..."
"I loved her when she said she would never leave me."
Cloud stared at Vincent, tears fresh on his cheeks. The Turk was looking at his hands, in a way that suggested he was recalling what Yuffie had done or said. "Is that so?"
"She clung hard to me, she said she would bring me back to myself, that I could never be alone again." Vincent smiled and it was all the Soldier could do not to gape. "She was adamant that nothing about me could scare her off, not the monster inside of me, not the monster I could grow into being. I was scared that I could never return that feeling, scared that it was a silly infatuation. But years, they came and went and there she was, by my side no matter how hard I tried to make myself hateful or to run her off with impossible takes or speaking to her father about her arranged marriage... nothing... so I thought, that I could love her. I thought that she could love me..." his hands closed tightly, "And I am in the danger of making the same mistake again, losing her to Jenova... like I did..."
"Vincent..." Cloud swallowed, "No, it won't happen."
"You don't know that it won't."
"That's true but, I know how you feel about her, I know that you care about her, isn't that enough? Shouldn't that help you? She forgives you, she whole heartedly forgives you..."
Forgiven? For what...?
"... and you can't even begin to understand, what a weight that is off your chest and off your shoulders, if you let yourself believe in it, if you let yourself grasp it." Cloud clenched his jaw, realising he was working up a temper, "...if those we love can accept us, why cant we?"
"I didn't think of it like that."
"It's okay, I had time to... to think." Cloud turned away from him and began picking through the wreckage of the ceiling, pulling pieces of rock away to look beneath them. Vincent was quiet as he tried to absorb what had been said, a silence that Cloud was grateful for, because it let him concentrate too on the task at hand.
"Hey, Vincent," he called. "I think I found something."
"What is it?"
Cloud stepped away, hauling the last piece out. It was a circular indent in the floor, like an escape hatch to a lower level. It even had a working handle, the twist kind that could be opened without a power source. "A shiny golden wire of hope."
"What?" Vincent looked at him blankly, "...it's an escape hatch not a wire."
Cloud laughed, "It doesn't matter."
I was so afraid of the sky, once upon a time, but now as deep down as I am, hidden or maybe trapped like a rat in a maze, I find myself longing for it, the wide clear and open sky. I miss what he said he would give me, I miss it.
"It seems like we've been walking for hours," Cid said to her, but without the usual bite or volume. It was a whisper, scared and fluttering as her heart that touched her ears. "Even 'they' haven't shown up any longer."
The visions had vanished the deeper they had gone into the world, closer to the Lifestream. Now, what Cid heard as silence, she heard, or more precisely felt, as a burgeoning of power, a swelling in her chest and up her spine, like molten gold filling her head and begging to be used. She had always known that as a Cetra her power within and even with the Lifestream was incredible and without par, but this close, she felt tingling and alive, as if a constant but tiny electric current was running through her, to the ground and air and to the person by her side.
Perhaps it was because of this that she was the first to notice.
"Cid," she said warningly.
"Come on, it can't be much longer."
Aerith grabbed his arm, "No, Cid... wait..."
She caught a flash of it in the darkness, vivid blue. It was there, so close, that her heart almost burst. Only this time, she knew better than to call out. Eyes, looking at her, pleading silently. They came towards her at a hurried pace.
"Zack..." she breathed.
"Zack!" Cid repeated, staring as the blue eyes came closer. He tried to shield her heroically with his body, hands grappling with the shaft of his pole-arm. "What.. the..."
The light attacked to his captain jacket's pocket shone on the fur of the wolf who came to a slow trot, panting. The fur was silver grey, but spiked in that familiar way and on the cheek... She reached a hand out past Cid, and touched that scar. "How..."
The wolf turned it's head back around, staring into the night behind that somehow seemed alive, bulging and furious. It was coming towards them. "Aerith?" Cid said, "Get down!"
It shot out as a heavy timber trunk, hitting the pole-arm square on the shaft, forcing it into Cid's chest. In turn, with the force of the blow, Cid was knocked backwards off his feet and into her, she then also falling backwards with Cid atop her, winding her. To his credit, the pilot hurriedly got up and crouched low, holding the pole-arm steady. She grasped about for her Princess Guard, only finding it when the Wolf-Zack brought it to her.
"You haven't got any less clumsy, Aerith."
She smiled, accepting it back from his mouth. "Zack... Cid?"
"...you know what," Cid snarled, "I am getting way too old for this god damn shit..."
"Well, well, well..." the voice slithered, the darkness sucking back away from the figure who stepped out of it. Half man, half monster, his face was contorted, cruel and inhumane. He was bleeding from various wounds on his body, bearing resemblance to bite marks, chunks taken clean out of him. She didn't scream. This time something else filled her entirely. Panic. She had killed him, she felt it... she felt the blood and the life pour out of him... "I guess, second time is always a charm, isn't that right, Honoured Daughter?"
She tried to keep her voice calm, "Doctor."