Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts, its characters or storyline. This collection is mine. Sorry it took so long to update. Grad school has started and I'm already drowning in homework. If this chapter is little frazzled, it's only a reflection of my state of mind currently. Enjoy anyway!
..:-X-:..
023 – Mind Games
(For JaneArmada; Prompt: 'Leon zapped into a time warp to pieces of Tifa's history.')
"And he just collapsed?" Merlin asked, waving his hand in front of Leon's face.
Cid folded his arms. "Yeah, right outta the fuckin' blue. Eyes rolled back and everythin'. Only thing I saw coulda happened was one a'those Nobodies hit him with a spell, but he seemed to brush it off with no trouble."
Merlin hummed thoughtfully, noting that Leon's eyes were still half open, though he was clearly not conscious, as he was lying lax on the couch in Merlin's house. Other than a knot coming in on the back of his head, though, he appeared uninjured.
"I already tried callin' Tifa, but I guess they're still fightin' over…whatever the Hell got those two all riled up." Cid shrugged.
Merlin straightened, "Well, I have a potion that will negate the effects of most spells. We'll try that first and if that doesn't snap him out of it…"
Cid frowned and tapped out a fresh cigarette from his pack. "Any idea what it is?"
The wizard sighed, "It could be a number of things, but—" He snapped his finger in front of Leon's half-lidded eyes again. Getting no response, he straightened, "It almost looks like a trap curse."
At Cid's raised eyebrow, Merlin explained. "There are many variations of a trap curse: trapping you inside an invisible box, inside your own mind, the lot…"
"So he's trapped inside his own head?" Cid looked skeptical.
"No, there is clearly no one home right now." Merlin gestured to Leon's body. "Which leads me to believe the Nobody used a trap curse on time. Imagine time is a game of roulette, and Leon is the ball. The spell is continually spinning and dropping his consciousness into different dates, for unknown periods of time, before spitting him out into another date."
"So he's reliving his old memories?" Cid winced, "We've all had some pretty dark ones, Merlin. The faster we get him out of there—"
"Not HIS memories." Merlin corrected, "Not necessarily anyway. Generally the time trap curse will focus on significant events in the life of the last person on the victim's mind."
There was little doubt between them of who that would be.
Cid cursed and took a drag from his cigarette. "Great, so he's trapped in Tifa's memories, watching her chase and flail after Cloud Strife for half her life. That's worse than Heartless." He marched toward the door. "I'm gonna go get Tifa here myself. You whip up that fancy-pants potion before the poor man slits his wrists in his sleep."
..:-X-:..
Leon's head was killing him, and everything smelled like hospitals.
Hospitals? Dammit. He opened his eyes and recognized the typical pastel colors of a hospital room, complete with forgettable paintings of flowers and shorelines. The room was empty save for a little girl curled up on the solo bed, and a worried man sitting beside her, looking apprehensive, angry, and exhausted.
Leon blinked. How had he gotten here? Where was HERE? He didn't know these two people. He didn't remember coming to the hospital. Leon looked down at himself and didn't see any injuries or any indication of why HE would be in a hospital; in fact, he looked semi-transparent. Almost like he was a ghost or something. The last thing he remembered was fighting Nobodies at the Restoration Site with Cid. Something had hit him in the head…but it hadn't hurt enough to cause hallucinations…had it?
The two people in the room paid him no attention, and he was starting to look for an escape route, when the man beside the girl's bed spoke.
"Tifa, what were you thinking?" He had a gentle, paternal tone that was clearly trying to contain frustration…and maybe tears.
Leon stopped short, nearly tripping over himself as he double took. Tifa?
The little girl on the bed couldn't have been older than 10. Her arms were bandaged as she folded them over her chest. She was bruised and there was a thick patch of gaze over her jaw. She had her back turned toward the speaking man—presumably her father—and was glaring fiercely at the edge of the bed.
"I was going to see Mom, since you wouldn't take me to her." She huffed.
The man grimaced, running a hand over his face. His expression looked sorrowful, but his voice stayed strong. "Tifa, we talked about this. Mom isn't here anymore…"
"Because she went through the mountains!" Tifa curled further into herself, and Leon cringed. He remembered Tifa telling him about this, about her mother's death.
"Sweetie, no. She's…We can't go see her. She's gone." Her father said gently.
"No!" Tifa shook her head, tears bubbling past her glare and dripping to the pillow. "You're lying! I hate you! Leave me alone!"
Leon grimaced and moved across the room, away from the scene. He had no idea how he had gotten here, or why he was seeing this…illusion or whatever it was, but he didn't want to see it anymore. Tifa had nearly been killed when she tried to cross the mountains to see her mother, thinking she was still alive. If she hadn't dragged Cloud along with her, she WOULD have died.
The little girl's quiet sobbing was painful to his ears as he tried to open the room door to leave this terrible memory.
..:-X-:..
When the door opened, Leon hastily stepped through, but nearly toppled out into thin air. The door seemed to lead into Hell itself, and he gagged on the sudden smell of sulfur and heated metal. He staggered out onto crumbling dirt and looked back. The door and the hospital room had vanished, leaving him in some sort of…factory?
Still choking slightly, Leon straightened and looked around. Giant hulks of machinery and catwalks had been built into the walls of some kind of underground cavern. Steam was hissing out of cracks in the ground, but the steam looked almost…blue or green.
"I hate you!" That was Tifa's voice. Young and in pain, but definitely her.
Leon whirled, trying to locate her, and spotted her on the ground. A dark haired man was kneeling over her. Tifa looked beaten badly, bleeding and dirty, and no older than 15. Leon couldn't tell if the man was trying to help her or hurt her, but Tifa's words left no uncertain terms.
"I hate you! I hate Shinra! I hate SOLDIER! I hate you all!" She screamed, shoving the man away.
The man flinched, obviously hurt at her words, and he looked toward the tall catwalk leading to a steel chamber. "I'm sorry for all of this, Tifa."
She curled into herself, trembling in pain and distress.
Then he left. He LEFT her. Leon actually gawked in disbelief as the dark haired soldier left the girl lying there and carried his sword up into the steel chamber. Leon immediately hurried to her side, but found he was unable to touch her or even speak so she could hear him. He really was a ghost…or he was REALLY hallucinating badly. What was going on?!
"No!" Another voice interjected.
Leon was nearly barreled over—and would have been, had he been tangible—as a young soldier skidded in out of nowhere and tore off his helmet to get a better look at Tifa's injuries. Leon moved away. Cloud? The teenaged boy looked horrified at Tifa's condition, but at this point she was unresponsive and appeared to have fallen unconscious again.
"Tifa? Tifa!" Cloud shook her, looked around for the culprit, and then gently moved her limp body away from the metal stairs.
The chamber doors ahead flew open then, and the same dark haired soldier staggered out, bleeding heavily from a wound to his abdomen, and collapsed on the stairs. Cloud ran to his side, exchanging some words. Leon couldn't tears his eyes away from Tifa. She had never told him about this. Neither she nor Cloud had ever spoken of what he was seeing before him now.
Cloud took the fallen man's sword and ran up the stairs. "Sephiroth!"
Everything was fading again, and Leon tried to move toward Tifa…Wait…
..:-X-:..
The church was full of flowers.
Leon regained his balance for what felt like the eighth time, lifting a hand to his head as a migraine started to hit. The sizzle of electricity hummed through the air, however, and he looked up just in time to see a now-adult Tifa slam into the wall. Her spread feet caught the impact and for a split second, she seemed to be clinging to the wall as flower petals were flung up from the wind of the movement.
She looked up, narrowed her eyes, and suddenly shot forward at her opponent, a man with short, styled silver hair, who had some kind of weapon hitched to his forearm. She bodily grabbed the man and dragged him along the floor, slamming his head down as she did so. With a feral snarl, she leapt away, skidding to the ground and looking up.
As the man started to fall, she jumped up toward him, snatching him around the shoulder and slinging him away from her person like a ragdoll. Her opponent slammed into the already battered pews near the back of the church, and he didn't rise. Tifa landed on her feet several meters away and stood, vaguely winded from the battle.
Leon made a fist and shook it once. Hell yeah, that was his Tifa.
..:-X-:..
There was another flash of light and this time Leon found himself in the Dark Depths, where Sora, Donald, Goofy, and Tifa were standing in the aftermath of the latest battle of Cloud versus Sephiroth.
"What will you do now?" Sora was asking.
Tifa looked pensive. "Guess I'll keep looking." Her expression was masking the pain. Leon knew that expression well.
"Got any leads?" Sora asked.
"Don't worry." Tifa smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. "Light is easy to find." She handed the young Keybearer a chain. "I gotta go. Here. This is for helping me out."
Before Sora or the other two could question her, Tifa made a quick exit across the Dark Depths, stepping back into the rocky trail that led toward Radiant Garden's town perimeter. Leon followed her. He had seen her just before she had gone to find Cloud fighting Sephiroth during the battle of the 1000 Heartless, but he hadn't seen her afterward for nearly a month.
As soon as Tifa was around the corner and out of sight from the Keybearer and his friends, she leaned against the wall, closing her eyes and drawing a slow breath. She had actually found Cloud this time, the person she had been trying to find for years. Then he had just up and vanished on her again. She had played strong for everybody else, but Leon could see the pain in her eyes now. Swallowing hard, she eventually straightened and continued on her lonely way.
..:-X-:..
The light was moving this time, zipping side to side in a way that made Leon groan and try to swat it away. His mind felt sluggish and he realized he was on his back.
"Looks like he's coming around." Merlin's cheery voice was close.
Coming around? Leon blinked as the offending light was removed. It turned out to be a small flash light that Merlin had been moving in front of his eyes. Vision adjusting, now Leon could see the ceiling of the wizard's house. What was he doing there? How had—
"Hey." Tifa leaned into his line of sight, eyes wide with concern.
Leon just blinked at her stupidly for a beat. She was looking AT him, not through him. She could see him. This…wasn't a memory, hallucination, whatever-thingy. His head throbbed and he grimaced, lifting a hand to feel Tifa's hand holding an ice pack against the lump behind his ear.
"What…?" He mumbled, the word coming out garbled and hoarse.
Tifa pursed her lips and held up her other hand. "How many fingers do you see?"
He paused, looking up at her worried expression. The last time he had seen her, outside whatever psychotic break he'd apparently just undergone, her face had been sharp and her eyes narrowed. They had argued, but he couldn't for the life of him remember what the argument had been about. It didn't seem to matter now anyway.
Instead of counting her fingers, he reached up and grasped her wrist, levering himself up and abruptly kissing her. She started in surprise at first, but then he felt her return the kiss.
Cid's voice interrupted. "You sure that was the right potion, Merlin?"
Leon maneuvered up into a sitting position, holding the ice bag against his head as Tifa scooted away. "What potion?"
The sorcerer folded his arms. "Of course I'm sure. Showing affection is probably just an after effect of whatever he experienced during the curse."
"Curse?" Leon blinked, looking to Tifa and then back to Merlin and Cid. "That was—"
"—better left undiscussed." Cid lifted a hand. "Cured or not, you still got one helluva concussion." He looked to Tifa. "Keep an eye on him for a while, yeah?"
Tifa bobbed her head, "Trust me, I'm not going anywhere." As Cid and Merlin stepped out, she looked back to Leon. "I'm sorry about earlier, but don't scare me like that, you big idiot!" She folded her arms, pretending to be pissed, but then relaxed. "What was that kiss for?"
Leon paused, started to shrug, and then stopped. "I just…remembered how amazing you are." Against his will, some blood colored his cheeks. "And…I'm not sorry for it."
Tifa's eyes softened, but she abruptly smacked him on the shoulder. "You mean you forgot?!"
...:-X-:..
A/N: This thing could have ended up beastly long, for all the fun I had with it. But I've been allotting all of these requests only a certain number of pages to fulfill them. That's why it might seem a little choppy…Then again, curses and spells are never really that fluid when it comes to mind-stuff, I figure, so…hopefully it worked. And while a lot of these flashbacks were from FFVII, I plan on incorporating those parts of her and Cloud's past into the KH universe...eventually.
Either way, hope it was entertaining.