A bit longer, this one. And an actual story format! Dialogue is from Kingdom Hearts II (obviously...)

Disclaimer: SquareEnix owns the recognisable bits.

Tifa.

Know: to perceive or understand as fact or truth; to apprehend clearly and with certainty.

She could hear their voices; they were just up ahead, around the corner.

They might as well have been a lifetime away.

She couldn't hold on much longer.

She could feel the pull back to limbo.

The insidious tug on her guts that meant any minute now she'd fade from this world.

She leant a hand on the rock face, exhausted, fighting the pull.

"You'll never let go of your past…"

She knew that voice. That was why she was here.

"Defeating me is meaningless."

She had to hold on, had to reach them.

"You know that more than anyone."

They were fighting; the sound of steel on steel reaching her ears, spurring her to push on.

"No matter how many times I fall, your darkness keeps calling me back!"

"Wrong!"

She was in an open space. In front of her stood Cloud, facing down his, and hers, worst nightmare.

"Tifa! Stay back!"

He sounded worried. She wanted to care about that, but it was taking all her strength to stay here.

She said something; she knew she did, something about helping him. But her voice was faint to her own ears.

"He'll never let go of the darkness."

Was that true? Was it even possible to exist without both light and dark? A sudden conviction gripped her.

"He doesn't have to."

And she knew it was the truth.

"He just needs someone to surround him with light."

He needed her.

"The darkness will be there, Sephiroth."

Because light did not exist without darkness.

"But in a place that you can't reach!"

And darkness could be kept at bay with light.

Sephiroth attacked her then. She'd thought he would. But she also knew… that he could not touch her…

…nor she him.

Light and dark meet but do not touch.

She made a decision. She knew what she had to do. Knew what she was here for.

Knew why she'd held on this long.

"Cloud, you can have my light."

She concentrated on him, wanted him to make this choice. Yet he hesitated. And she knew why.

"I just… I don't know."

He didn't want her to go.

And whilst that lifted her heart, she knew, she knew that if she stayed, with this physical form, then she couldn't help him.

Couldn't defeat Sephiroth.

And that was never an option.

So there was no choice.

And thus... he began to glow.