Tifa leaps from the Shera's descending ramp at a height that sends shockwaves through her ankles upon landing and searches the writhing sea of terrorized citizens for Denzel's mop of brown hair. A male voice yells her name—either Cloud or Cid—but she doesn't look back as she shoulders her way toward the center of the city, where the Meteorfall monument towers overhead. Screams go up like flares around her and running bodies toss her like tempestuous currents, bouncing her between jutting elbows and shoulders, snagging her hair and sending it into her face. Strange beasts that appear to be made of bone and sharpened shadow dart around, closing their jaws around innocents without hesitation. Tifa does her best to block out the cacophony of noise, lest it dredge up intrusive images of past bloodshed that will only distract her.
Miraculously, it doesn't take her long to spot him.
"Denzel!"
He stands as part of a stationary ring of children that loops around the Meteorfall statue. His head is bowed, and he is totally still as if he, too, is made of stone and steel, impervious to the danger igniting around him. He and the other kids form an eerie image of calm amidst the apocalyptic madness.
Tifa crashes through the shifting crowd and crouches in front of Denzel, calling his name and dropping her hands onto his shoulders. Her relief at his unharmed appearance evaporates, precipitating unease as his head drifts upward to reveal heavily lidded eyes, their usual royal blue awash in an intrusion of turquoise that is broken only by a slitted pupil resembling the cross section of a blade. Tifa flinches back with a choked whimper.
Before she can decide what to do next, the air pops and splits with small charges of ozone. Bolts of blue lightning rend the sky, clouds are torn apart, and Tifa shudders in recognition.
A summon.
Sure enough, an analog of Bahamut coalesces in the skies and plummets toward the city's center, wailing a piercing roar to announce its arrival. Tifa glances around helplessly, searching for the familiar faces of Cid or Barret or Cloud, but the Shera is gone and people are stumbling over the bodies that lie strewn about on the concrete. All she can do is tuck an unmoving Denzel into the shelter of her body as Bahamut crashes heavily onto the ground, pulverizing one of the shadow creatures beneath its talons before it crawls up onto the Meteorfall monument. Tifa's hair whips into her face as the dragon beats its mighty wings, taking to the air once more in a wavering hover. The pulsing gales are almost enough to knock her off her feet. Intense energy gathers in its teeth and charges, charges, charges up to a terrifying mix of flames and electricity that comes searing down onto the statue.
Tifa tightens her hold on Denzel, shielding him completely from the blast of molten dust. The only thought that crosses her scattered mind is she is so thoroughly glad that her final moment in this world was spent protecting life instead of stealing it away.
Then there's nothing.
Reno fucking hates these Sephiroth wannabes.
He would much rather be four drinks in, surrounded by some premium female company, destructively isolated from the sins of his past—like usual. But, no, here is he is, practically reliving it from the other side. The side of those who are trying to preserve life, not sacrifice it on a promise of supposed greater good. He knows that only a margin of his efforts stem from self-preservation; the majority arises out of a remorseful obligation to give back after taking and taking and taking.
Still, if he has to fight again, he wishes that opponents could have been a bit less saturated in angsty insanity.
Despite their annoying waxing about "Mother," Reno has to admit that they're tough.
He skids across the pavement for the thirty-second time and barely manages a wheezing breath before Rude's significant weight crashes on top of him. The air leaves Reno's lungs aboard a hoarse grunt and he goes limp, utterly stunned as the world blurs.
Rude clambers off of him and rolls onto his back. A lens cracks apart within the frame of his sunglasses, sliding down his cheek and sprinkling the ground with dark shards.
"Leave them, Brother," Reno manages to hear through his wheezing breaths. "We've got a job to do."
Reno only allows himself two seconds to lay there and simply hurt before stubbornly hissing in a deep inhale through clenched teeth and pushing up into a crouch. His keen eyes quickly flit in every direction, searching for the black and silver figures that stick out oh so glaringly in the crowd of hysterical citizens. They are nowhere to be seen.
"Where'd they go?" he grounds out, his irritation rising. Shiva, he's ready for this to be over. The last thing he wants to do is play a game of cat-and-mouse.
Several yards away, the summon screeches deafeningly.
"I don't see them," Rude concurs as he sits up.
Reno swears viciously.
Cloud races along the chaotic roads of Edge, pushing Fenrir way past the point of what is safe. He has wasted enough time getting Marlene to his apartment. In the time it took the Shera to arrive, plumes of smoke have speared up into the sky; grotesque creatures have diffused chaotically into the city, tearing apart buildings and people without discrimination. And of course, because fate cannot seem to cut him a break, a damn summon is tumbling from the overcast sky in his absence. It breaks the bleakness with angry spits of blue energy that charge the humid air.
He urges the bike to accelerate.
The anxiety in his veins lightens when he breaks through the network of buildings and into the heart of the city. Luckily, a good majority of the townsfolk have cleared out of the area. Cloud glances up to see the Shera idling overhead—a slash of crimson catches his eye, then the swift arc of a shuriken, and then he hears the menacing growl of Nanaki. It seems that the cavalry has arrived.
But it is the small figure lurking in under the overhang of a shop that causes Cloud's heart to pound with potent relief.
Denzel turns to watch with a budding grin as Cloud whips the motorcycle around him and screeches to a halt.
"Cloud!"
"Are you okay?" Cloud flings himself off of Fenrir and crouches before Denzel, hastily looking over him for even the smallest injury. Other than a few smudges of dirt and a light abrasion across his cheekbone, Denzel looks fine.
"Yeah—I think Tifa saved me—I can't remember too well," he says, his face darkening. Cloud sees a film of guilt contort his features.
"Where is she?" The question blurts itself out without the permission of thought.
Denzel shakes his head, scanning the carnage at Cloud's back. "I don't know. I think she's fighting with Barret and the others." A sudden urgency scrunches his brow as he peers back up at Cloud. "Did you find Marlene?"
Cloud nods. "She's okay. I took her back to the apartment."
"I'm gonna go wait with her," Denzel says, skipping backwards a few steps. "See you there, right, Cloud?"
Feeling oddly complacent—indulgent, even, in the face of such an innocent wish, Cloud nods. Denzel turns and sprints away in a show of energy that Cloud has never seen in him before.
Relief at Denzel's wellbeing soon bleeds into focused resolve. With his jaw tight and eyes hard, Cloud turns and glares up at the wrathful Bahamut. Fenrir's compartments slide open to reveal eager sword grips jutting out for the taking. Cloud collects the full load and throws himself into the fray. Gunfire and a spinning shuriken dip in and out of his peripherals; he suddenly feels more connected to the world than he has in recent memory, a bit less adrift and a bit more grounded in the presence of his friends. Their battle cries speak for his soul, for what he wants but won't allow himself to have. Companionship.
And then he is rocketing skyward, propelled only by their faith in him, flying headlong into the vaporizing heat of a megaflare. But despite the heights he has climbed, he isn't going to make it—he needs the extra push. He has always needed it, always fought it, always tried to get by without it. Now it's caught up to him, and he's going to fall unless someone catches him, but who is there to catch the guy who has shut everyone out of his life in favor of his demons?
"He needs a bit more air," Zack muses.
"Yeah," Aerith agrees nonchalantly. "So, go give him a boost."
"Ready?"
Cloud can hear the smirk in Zack's voice.
Bahamut crashes to the earth with all the cobalt brilliance of a dying star.
Cloud closes his eyes briefly as he tumbles through the air, almost serenely, replaying Zack's encouraging tenor over and over.
There isn't a single waver in his boots when they alight on a steel beam with easy sureness. Cloud's eyes flick open to stare at nothing, unfocused and glazed, and his mind doesn't quite register the victorious cheers of his friends below. He's too busy stamping out an intrusive sort of doubt—that perhaps Zack's presence was a mere hallucination borne of Geostigma. The thought entreats nausea to bloom in his stomach; he pushes it down. Because no, he certainly didn't imagine the sudden acceleration into the sky, nor the inexplicable tidal wave of adrenaline rippling through his body.
It was real. He doesn't know how it could be possible, but he at least knows that it was real.
A small, concentrated beam of something cuts through the perpetual darkness inside him. Cloud thinks that perhaps, with a bit of careful nurturing, it could be called hope.
But now is not the time to unpack that development. His gaze sharpens and begins to skip around the sprawling city below, searching for the faces of his friends. There's Barret, convening with Nanaki and Cait Sith. A precocious sort of laugh prompts Cloud to trace Yuffie's blurry form as she sails through the air and lands nimbly next to Vincent where he crouches on a rooftop. She says something to him through a grin and then yells down to Cid where he stands in the middle of the square, motioning histrionically to the Shera circling overhead.
Cloud scowls in confusion as he peers down at the growing assembly. People are starting to emerge once more, sensing that the immediate danger has passed, and the increasing number of faces muddies up his view. But, having scanned the collection of faces twice over, he's nearly certain that Tifa isn't down there.
He slips his sword into the sheath against his back and prepares to leap down—
A brilliant cyan light flares up in his peripheral vision. Cloud's head whips around just in time for him to spot Rufus Shinra falling from a nearby building and the dark form of Kadaj plunging down after him. Gunshots ring out across the distance.
Cloud immediately throws himself to the ground. The cooling mako reignites in his veins, launching him into a sprint. Yuffie's curious cry echoes after him.
He skids around a corner to find the Turks converging on Rufus, who is suspended in a well-aimed net trap. Tseng and Elena, both heavily bandaged and moving gingerly in deference to obvious injuries, assist their superior in climbing to the ground. Anyone else would look a fool during such an unflattering task, but—of course—Rufus Shinra still manages to maintain a graceful fluidity.
Cloud skids to a stop as Rufus barks a succinct command at Reno and Rude.
"Go."
As they hurry off, Cloud quickly scans the area and infers that they're going after Kadaj.
"Shinra, what happened?" Cloud growls as the unease mounts in his gut.
Even with one eye bandaged, Rufus Shinra's gaze is still weighty with somberness.
"Kadaj has Jenova."
"Brother! Did you retrieve Mother?"
"I did. How is our guest doing?"
"She hasn't woken up yet but—"
"Good. If she does, just knock her back out—we can't take any chances with this one."
"What are we gonna do with her?"
"Don't worry about it, Loz. I'll handle it."
"But—"
"'But' nothing. I know what Sephiroth would want—wants—done. I'll be there in a few hours. Now, get rid of the phone before they trace it."
"Okay, Brother."
Tifa wakes to a sort of grogginess that she hasn't felt in years. It's the slow, laborious return to reality that only comes from sleep magic. The departing dregs of the spell trade themselves for small bits of her surroundings—clammy air, a cool and uneven spread of stone beneath her back, the faint reverb of water dripping into a shallow puddle nearby.
Tifa's eyes open heavily.
"Oh, good. I was beginning to grow impatient."
The voice is sleek and cold, like a long needle sliding beneath her skin. It is not Sephiroth's, but it sends a familiar chill down Tifa's spine. She reluctantly turns her head, ignoring the dull ache of the motions, and traces her eyes up the figure of a man swathed in black. His smile glints dangerously in the milky light infusing the cavern serving as a backdrop behind him. There is a double-bladed katana on his hip; the scar across Tifa's chest tingles when she looks at it. This man is not the Remnant that she fought in the church, but she gets the sense that he is somehow worse.
The remains of unconsciousness flee. She presses her palms to the damp ground and pushes herself to her feet.
He merely watches her with unmistakable eyes.
"Where are my manners?" The man says jovially, betraying that he could care less about propriety. "You can call me Kadaj—though, not for much longer, I suppose."
Tifa isn't sure what that means, but she knows that it bodes ill. She remains silent.
"Not feeling very talkative? That's alright. I already know who you are: Tifa Lockhart. Born in Nibelheim. Member of Avalanche. Martial artist. Bartender. Murderer."
Tifa's breath hitches, and Kadaj's eyes gleam as he notices. His smirk twists into an expression of false pity.
"Sorry—bit of a sore spot?"
Tifa refuses to speak and simply glares weakly.
Kadaj takes a slow step to the side, his hands clasping together behind his back in calculated leisure. Tifa turns with him as he stalks slowly in a wide arc around her, hugging the wall of the circular cavern. More light pours over him as he approaches the area furthest from the single exit; Tifa suddenly realizes that she has been here before. Her eyes flit away from Kadaj's prowling figure, drawn and held by the statuesque woman near to him.
Lucrecia looks utterly unchanged.
Kadaj stops a short distance away from the large mass of glowing crystal and gazes up at Lucrecia's face. When he talks, his tone is light and explanatory.
"Lucrecia Crescent—brilliant, but quite disturbed. She came here to escape her guilt, as I'm sure you know." He nods toward the crystal. "This formation is actually a hardened fountain of materia. She is unable to die, thanks to the large amount of Mother's cells within her, so she will simply sleep forever." Kadaj turns back to Tifa, who can only watch with mounting apprehension. "Sounds nice, doesn't it?"
Tifa clenches her fists at her sides. She could run—he is all the way across the large cave, and she is nearer to the tunnel that will lead to the surface. It has been so long since she was here with Vincent and the rest of their friends—another lifetime, she feels—but she recalls that it's not a dauntingly far distance. If she's lucky, she'll lose him in the surrounding wilderness before her stamina runs out.
Something tells her that running will be her only chance of leaving this place, dead or alive.
Kadaj smirks as if reading her thoughts, and Tifa suddenly knows that she wouldn't get far enough to see the light of day.
"Looking at her, you would never guess that she hates herself, would you?" he muses. "She looks quite peaceful."
Tifa flicks her eyes to Lucrecia just long enough to internally concur, then returns to watching him.
"Let me fill you in on a little secret," Kadaj says conspiratorially. "This particular materia, having been influenced by Mother's cells…well, let's just say that it's a bit different. Evolved, if you will." He steps closer to Lucrecia and reaches out a gloved hand to run his finger down the shimmery expanse. "When it comes into contact with organic material, it grows. A lot. And whatever it encapsulates is preserved—in stasis, I suppose you could say, just like Dr. Crescent.
"All it would take is a press of your hand." Kadaj demonstrates with his own gloved hand, placing it flat against the crystal. "And you wouldn't have to deal with it anymore. The guilt."
Tifa's brow crumples as she processes his words.
And Ramuh damn her, but she can't help it—can't help but think about what he is telling her.
She would splay her fingers and allow the coolness of the cave to seep into her palm until it nestles into the very heart of her, sealing the bleeding wounds in her soul with numb placidness. And then the rock would grow, creeping along her skin to follow the trail of her arm until it covers her completely. She would simply fall asleep, hidden away from the world, and lock herself in dream or nothingness, whichever awaited her. It is penance and freedom all at once.
At her side, her hand twitches. Her gloves are suggestively absent.
Tifa gasps in a breath as the faces of her friends suddenly flash in her mind, breaking the spell. She is surprised with herself, shocked at the fierceness of her desire to separate permanently from reality, but she cannot find any shame for it. Aerith's blood is on her skin—she sees the ruby beads of paradoxically loyal betrayal even though they have long been washed away—and she has alienated herself from her loved ones. Even so, Tifa will not put them through any more grief. It is one thing to keep them at the fringes of her existence, but it is another to remove herself from them entirely. They would not abide it; she cannot hurt them any further.
She turns, takes two leaping bounds toward the exit—unyielding grips clamp down around her biceps and stop her with jarring immediacy.
Kadaj sneers down at her. "Don't say I didn't try this the nice way."
A/N: I know that the Advent Children stuff was kept pretty short, but I don't think it's necessary to rehash the finer details of what we already know. I prefer to focus on the internal action, if you get my meaning. Thank you to everyone who has left a kind word, you guys make me smile! Have a great day :)