Chapter 95: Lost
Tifa wasn't sure what she expected. Something terrible, that was for sure. Maybe she'd expected the Lifestream to start screaming or Aerith to be wrenched suddenly from her hands. Belatedly, she realized that the liquid was flowing upward and she worried about Aerith getting it up her nose. When nothing immediately drastic happened, Tifa realized she was holding her breath and she released it in a quick sound. In front of her, Aerith was slowly moving forward and the way her body shook, to Tifa at least, it felt as if her friend was pushing against wind or some other force like that. Her knuckles hurt she was holding the back of Aerith's familiar pink jacket so hard but she didn't dare let go. Didn't dare, for even a minute, loosen her grip. Somehow it was always that one horrible moment when you relaxed where things went horribly wrong and Tifa was determined not to give that moment a chance. She was so intent on hanging on to Aerith that instead of letting go she almost jumped forward and joined her friend in the Lifestream when a section of the floor exploded upward.
If Tifa had been a screamer – she would have screamed.
Lacking that release of tension however, she inhaled so quickly that she choked on spit instead and so her eyes were watering and she was coughing as she realized that the floor had burst open because a body had been slammed upward through it and that several other bodies were following it out. For a split second, her mind refused to see anything wrong because these weren't monsters. They were people. All of the bodies in the room belonged to people and it was only when she heard the gun shots and saw the screaming flashes of metal that she realized they were not only armed but in the process of a life and death battle with each other.
And Cloud was one of them.
She stopped herself from gasping his name at the last second. Not wanting to distract him from the strange silver haired people he was fighting. Silver haired and yet neither of the two had the arrogance and grace that she remembered from the Nibelheim reactor. No. He came flying up out of the open hole seconds later and her heart froze in her chest as the scar over it seemed to writhe. For a second, her fingers frozen, she almost lost Aerith.
The slide of fabric against her fingers jolted her back to the immediate and she tightened her hands on her friend again. Aerith was almost entirely inside the rushing Lifestream now and Tifa was torn between dragging her backward in the face of this new danger or just joining her in panic. Instead she held herself steady, wondering how she could defend her friend against Sephiroth and yet keep a grip on her too.
Because it was Sephiroth. With his fall of long pale hair and the absolute grace he moved with there was no doubt. He spun from the hole and raised his impossibly long sword just as a dark haired man leaped up through the opening and brought his huge sword up defensively. Again, she almost said the man's name but stopped herself just in time.
Zack?
How had Zack gotten here? And if Zack was here where was - ?
Even as she thought it, the smaller girl's conformer screamed out of the hole as well, almost nicking one of the silver haired strangers and throwing off his attack on her brother's unguarded left. Yuffie scrambled up after it. Everything was happening so fast that Tifa couldn't keep track of everyone and in her hands, Aerith was starting to shudder. Still, Tifa hesitated.
They were here for the stone. Despite the fight going on around her, she was still here for her friend and her friend was here for the stone. If she pulled Aerith back and her friend didn't have the stone, then what they needed to end this would still be in the Lifestream. Someone would still have to go back in after it and there was a good chance that one of the silver haired people might make a grab for it too. Pulling it out was also dangerous but Tifa had always been the kind that preferred trusting herself and her friends over some ancient defense. She had a split second to make a decision and she decided to keep holding her friend and pray that Aerith got the stone quickly. Worried, her eyes shifted to watch her friends and the silver haired enemy. For the moment everyone was too busy with each other to bother her but she knew it was only a matter of time before they were noticed and that's when the 'crazy kung-fu stunts' would have to start on her part.
She could almost picture it in her head. 'This one involves a ladder, an expensive vase, and a wind chime…'
"Aerith…" she grit it out between her teeth even though she couldn't imagine her friend actually being able to hear the 'hurry up' tone in her voice, much less her voice at all. Aerith jerked in her fingers suddenly though and then, slowly, too slowly, started to pull back. Tifa took that as a hint, knotted both of her hands in Aerith's jacket even more firmly and leaned back, throwing all her weight into getting her friend out quickly over gracefully.
It was like pulling your boots out of mud.
Gritting her teeth and narrowing her eyes in focus, Tifa pulled. All around her she was aware of the sounds of battle. She was very distinctly aware of Cloud when he moved to stand between her and everything else, giving up his mobility to keep her safe. Muscles straining, Tifa continued her own fight to haul her friend out of the Lifestream that seemed so intent on keeping her. For a minute, even all her efforts seemed to be pointless, as Aerith's body froze and refused to dislodge from the flowing green anymore. Tifa made a noise and threw the last of her reserves into it, letting the panic and adrenaline fuel her. With a disturbingly slurping noise, Aerith's body came free and both of them tumbled backward. Tifa wrapped her arms automatically around her friend to try to cushion her and her friend's body fell bonelessly against her. It made Tifa's heart stop and then Cloud's body was suddenly crouched low over hers. He was fighting duel handed, two swords moving in tandem and she didn't know that she'd ever known him to actually have to take his sword apart before. In fact, she only knew the giant sword came apart because she'd watched him polish the pieces separately often enough on lazy evening in Costa del Sol.
That seemed a very long way away from here.
"Do we have whatever we're here for?" Somehow Cloud's voice managed to carry above the sounds of battle without rising, though Tifa could hear the strain in it. Aerith still wasn't moving and Tifa hunched over her awkwardly, trying to be as small a target as possible, trying to keep from distracting Cloud, trying – oh Gaia – trying to bite down her panic at her friend's condition. Clutched in Aerith's hand with a death grip Tifa hoped wasn't literal, was a rough looking, sharp edged dull green stone. It looked like jade or jasper, almost colorless. Tifa reached down to gently pry Aerith's fingers off of it while she searched her friend's face for signs of life. The skin was almost translucently pale over Aerith's delicate bone structure and she didn't look as if she was breathing. Tifa got the stone free and used her other hand to shake her friend, calling her name.
Aerith couldn't die. Not like this. Not in the middle of everything. Not before she'd had a chance to see her mother again and talk to her father on the PHS and… just not yet. Aerith couldn't die. She just couldn't.
In the chaos, there was suddenly a bottle in front of her and she caught it just before it dropped onto her friend.
"Use it!" Cloud's voice, still not rising, was strained and sharp and she heard actual physical pain at the edges of it. Without hesitation, she broke the top off the bottle and poured the potion down her friend's throat. Nothing brought back the dead. But if Aerith was only at the very end of dying…
"What did she get?" Cloud was still, somehow, concentrating on both the fight and what was going on behind him.
"Stone." Tifa answered on automatic, willing her friend's chest to start rising. When Cloud's black-gloved hand opened in front of her, she gave him the stone without a thought. Tentative, she shook her motionless friend again and whispered her name. Cloud stayed a wall of protection between her and danger. She would have traded that for a fallen pillar if it meant he would be safer but there were no pillars close by at the moment and when she moved, she'd be dragging her friend with her.
Across the room, Yuffie gave a sudden shout and it snapped Tifa's head up in time to see Zack dropping the man he was fighting. Except… it wasn't Sephiroth. In the confusion, she must have missed when the man moved on to a different attack and, with a thread of fear that didn't need thought to activate, she snapped her head around looking for him. Not even being a distraction now, could keep her from saying:
"Cloud?"
He grunted in response and the two silver haired strangers that had been attacking him suddenly backed off. They were starting to glow with surging materia energy though and Tifa made a noise of protest, the only time she had to do anything and hunched herself protectively over Aerith's limp form. In almost the same instant she felt the weight of Cloud's body and his arms came down to wrap around her and tuck both her and Aerith into the shelter of his form. It was utterly ridiculous but for the first time since before they'd left the Highwind, Tifa felt safe. She closed her eyes in relief. There was a roaring, screaming, blinding cacophony of light and the pressure of it even hurt her ears. Tifa managed to get one hand free of Aerith to wrap it around Cloud's forearm. The ground under her lurched and, for a very long minute, it seemed as if the world was going to a literal hell. Against her ear, voice still soft, incongruously, she thought she heard Cloud murmur:
"You've been everything to me. Always."
"Cloud?" it came out weakly and the sound of the explosions and grinding rock tore it away. His arms stayed firmly around her and his body sheltered hers completely.
The ground stopped shifting alarmingly under her – and only belatedly did it occur to her, in a building that changed it's mind all the time about what it looked like, to worry about what happened when parts of itself blew up. Her ears were still ringing. Aerith lay unmoving in her arms and Tifa willed her to be unconscious and not just a dead body. She blinked and the air was full of dust and a vaguely threatening green haze. The fountain in the middle of the room was gone. Looking, she saw that so was half the floor.
Including Zack and Yuffie.
Cloud let go of her and was on his feet again in an instant but he moved stiffly. His moves were usually so fluid that seeing him jerking told Tifa just how much pain he must be in. And then, with a swallowed grunt, he fell to his knees. Tifa heard the crack of impact. His arms folded in across his chest and he bent forward, golden hair almost touching the broken ground.
Hating to, she still let go of Aerith and shifted on her heels to rest at his side, arm over his tense, twitching back. Now would be a good time for Zack to pull off a heroic entrance, Yuffie in tow. She kept her eyes locked on the two silver haired strangers across the torn floor. They looked exhausted and she spared a moment, to concentrate on Cloud.
"Cloud?"
He was shaking his head and she could feel the shivers running through him. This was worse than it had been earlier on the Highwind. Except he wasn't clutching his arm. His fingers, gloves a dark contrast, threaded through his pale hair as he looked as if he was trying to keep his skull together. Deep in his throat, almost impossible to hear, she recognized the sounds of his stifled screams.
"Cloud!" She laid her hands over his, huddling closer to him, not knowing what to do and damning the practical part of her that said knocking him unconscious was probably the best option. His arm shot out so suddenly she didn't even see it coming. One minute she was next to him and the next she was halfway across the room and rolling to a stop. What shocked her most, even more than the fact he'd actually pushed her, was that – it hadn't hurt. He'd used her off balance position to unbalance and start her rolling. It was in the direction opposite the broken floor and the silver haired duo. She stopped her roll and scrambled to her hands and knees, looking back at him in shock. His face, pale with the skin tight over the angular bones of it, turned toward her and even in the shadow cast by his body she could see his eyes.
Except they weren't his eyes…
She mouthed the protest but nothing came out. He made another noise and his body bucked but the eyes stayed the same. Cold snake eyes the color of dying jade. She didn't have to see it clearly to realize the pupils were slits. She'd seen those eyes before. The scar on her chest burned.
Cloud got one foot under himself and, still hunched, managed to pull himself to a kneeling position. His lips were drawn back from his teeth and she saw, in frozen horror, as his pale hair shaded paler still, as if someone was chasing clouds over an open field, tainting gold with dull silver. His eyes didn't blink as they looked at her.
But they did laugh. And there was nothing of Cloud in that laughter.
The other two silver haired strangers were by his side by then and his teeth flashed as he tried to shrug them off. But it was arrogance in his face, not enmity. The more slender of the two silver haired attackers gave a hazy glow and suddenly, all three of them, tipped to the side the way Aerith stepped sideways through walls.
And just like that all three of them were gone.
