Chapter 5

As Tifa's description in chapter one, Cloud is reverting back to his old self (Crisis core, FF7) in this story, so he's not being OOC. Peace.

Cloud's POV: The date

People got the impression that I'm a cold, emotionally detached, insensitive son of a...

But, I changed a lot for the past year and I know everyone noticed that, too. Right now, I'm TRYING, HARD, to go back to my old self, my happy, cheerful self before I went away to pursue my dreams to become SOLDIER.

Just thinking about it makes me shudder.

Aside from that, I am more than willing to sacrifice anything for my family with Tifa. I'm completely happy with them and there is nothing in the world that could replace any of them, I don't ever want to lose them.

And right now, I'm doing that so called sacrifice to keep someone who is very close to my heart. A complete creep?

Right.

Especially when these words are coming from me. I just hope I don't sound like a freaking stalker. Or do I?

Anyway, I have done something remotely out of my comfort zone, whatever that is. I have followed Tifa and Vincent all the way to Costa del sol to make sure they don't get 'too close', if you know what I mean.

"We're going to disguise ourselves, too!" Was Yuffie's words to me before this all happened, we managed to change our appearance and the thing was, she didn't have to convince me to do it, I was willing to sacrifice my dignity and fake SOLDIER honor to be able to 'monitor', not stalk, Tifa and Vincent.

"Keep telling that to yourself moron, MONITOR, right." Yuffie told me when we were done with our 'make over'. That brat is really getting on my nerves.

Since Yuffie is head of intelligence in WRO, she was able to get information on where Vincent and Tifa reserved dinner for the night. Great use of power, really.

We we're lucky to land a seat that was actually BESIDE them, and they didn't even recognize us, 'it must be fate' was Yuffie's words. We pretended to be a normal, happy looking couple having dinner, making me inwardly shiver. We carefully watched them from the corner of our eyes, we agreed that once we saw them being too close, we'll do something to distract them, and that's exactly what we did when Tifa was going to hold hands with him, we let it go the first time when Vincent was choking, we didn't want him to choke to death. But the second time, we started laughing to our hearts content about absolutely nothing. I got too desperate to stop the hold hands scenario that I ended up overdoing everything, and embarrassed myself further when I started to pretend talking on my phone and it was too late when I realized that it was upside down and flipped close.

I'm just a stupid, chocobo headed idiot.

Tifa stared out at the scenery in front of her in the terrace, she was still distracted about the raven haired guy during dinner, because it greatly reminded her of Cloud.

I miss him... She thought with a sigh. She pulled out her phone and gently went over to her contact list, her fingered hovered over the call button while highlighting Cloud's name, but decided against it and flipped her phone shut again.

He'll call me if he misses me, too. She pouted childishly. So far, he hasn't and it was making her heart lurch. She stood up and gripped the metal railings and looked down, Vincent was already sleeping on the coach, but she couldn't sleep. They hadn't made any progress on the mission and it was bothering her. She saw a man walking alone in the shore, she watched him for a while before another man started approaching him and what she saw next got her on alert instantly, the newcomer pulled out something from his pocket and drove it into the other man's neck and he started having seizure like movements before collapsing completely.

"MAGNUS!" Tifa yelled and she didn't have time to explain for she already jumped down the terrace and started running towards the scene, when she reached the offending man she did a savage roundhouse kick that hit the man's head and had him flying from the impact, he instantly stood up but before he could attack Tifa, red fabric started going around him in a circular motion and the next thing he knew, he was being held by the neck from behind with a large, silver gun aimed at his head. Tifa noticed the man's face for the first time, it looked hollow and his eyes.

Were green, glowing and had slits for pupils. Her eyes widened at the familiar sight.

"Who are you and what are you doing with this people?" Vincent growled menacingly at the man, who began to smirk lazily in a lopsided manner, Tifa punched him square in the face that had him yelping, then he spit out blood.

"Talk." She said firmly.

"It is coming..." The man hissed and both Tifa and Vincent looked at each other, it was the same thing that Yuffie's attacker said from before.

Seriously, Is that all these guys can say? Tifa thought irritably.

"Elaborate or I will not hesitate to shoot you." Vincent said with more venom this time while he pushed his gun further on the man's skull.

"You'll find out... soon enough..." He said again with a hollow look on his face.

He talks normally after all. Tifa punched him hard in the gut that had him squirming in pain, his face earned a perplexed look from Tifa because he looked like he ate a bunch of sliced lemons in one go and was suffering from the taste of it all. Vincent let him go while Tifa grabbed his collar and pinned him down the sand and delivered savage blows to the man until he passed out. She stood up and flipped her phone to call Reeve, they needed this man in captivity for answers on what was going on. Vincent attended to the man who was supposed to be abducted, felt his pulse and was relieved when there was one. Tifa had just finished calling Reeve and after a while, helicopters had began arriving, Reeve getting off in one of them.

"What happened?" He asked his two comrades immediately and when they had told him everything, he praised them for their good work and his men started grabbing the man and his victim was getting attended by medics.

"We'll update you as soon as we can, keep a low profile, for now." Reeve said then his face fell. I was in the middle of watching Amylia slap Gardo's mistress to her heart's content, too. He thought, looking totally heartbroken.

"Reeve... There was something about the man, it looked like..." Tifa paused. "He didn't look like he was doing what he's doing on his will, just by judging on the look on his face. He was... Empty. And his green, glowing eyes... It's just like..." She stopped talking and swallowed and Reeve understood.

It was a good thing that no one was around when all of it happened or else, their cover would have been blown. Or that's what they thought.

Unknown to them, there were two people who witnessed what happened and one of them was struggling on getting out of his confines, which was composed of ropes, more ropes, duct tape and unwanted feelings helplessness.

"Mmmmpmmh mmmmpppph mmmph!" He tried to yell to his companion who was looking from a pair of binoculars with an irritated look on her face.

"If I didn't do this to you, you would have blown our cover, ass wipe!" Yuffie yelled at the struggling 'Hero' of the planet who was squirming on the sand.