"It's been ten hours—how do you still not have any leads?" Cloud growls as he runs a tense hand through his hair. He looks like a caged panther from where he looms in the doorway of Reeve's office at WRO HQ. Such a corporate, bureaucratic setting doesn't not suit Cloud Strife.
Even so, the accusatory tone of his voice is uncalled for.
Reeve, normally the epitome of composure, allows a bit of frustration to harden his features. "These bastards aren't exactly predictable, Cloud."
A harsh sigh, a moment of pause. "You're right. Sorry."
Fear of a resurrected Sephiroth looms like a noxious fog on the horizon. It's been hours since Bahamut fell into stardust and the Remnants vanished with their prize. The citizens of Edge are taking it as a victory, setting to the task of cleaning up wreckage, breaking out booze to celebrate life and mourn death. Only a select few know that there is something more—something worse—on the way. Reeve softens—this is a stressful situation for everyone.
"It's okay. Hopefully, someone will report back with some promising information. Any word on Tifa?"
Cloud stiffens, becoming even more rigid than he already was. If he was avoiding Reeve's knowing gaze before, he is absolutely shuttered, now. "Not that I've heard."
Reeve wonders if he's even asked.
He chooses his next words carefully, nervous and totally unsure about how they'll be received. "I can divert some of the search teams to look for her…"
Cloud doesn't answer right away. His startling eyes drop to the ground, brooding and pensive. Reeve can't help but be disappointed in the obvious hesitation. Certainly, he has some understanding of the state of things between Cloud and Tifa, especially with having witnessed a display of the rift quite recently, but it pains him to see two of the same soul so estranged.
"Two teams," Cloud eventually suggests without inflection.
It's reasonable. Reeve nods his agreement.
Tifa sweeps her leg into his and wrenches away, darting back a few yards as Kadaj regains his balance.
He lunges.
They descend into a close-range war of fists and wills. He is quick and nimble, much like Tifa, and though he is clearly more suited to sword fighting than hand-to-hand—he moves like a swordsman, like Cloud used to when he and Tifa would spar—he keeps her on edge. Tifa's energy swells and abates in sporadic bursts—a side effect of the fading sleep spell that used to be easy to overcome back when she was in prime fighting condition, but it's a hinderance after years out of practice. Fortunately, the rhythm of this dance is familiar and she mostly manages to read his movements before he completes them.
The sole of her boot crashes against his raised arms and sends him skidding backwards. Tifa takes the few precious seconds to breathe deeply and quickly presses her fingers into the screaming area of her ribcage. Pain flares and she concludes that at least one rib has cracked under the force of his punch.
"Why don't you just kill me?" she barks, growing frustrated with his desire to draw this out. Why is he going to all this trouble just to incapacitate her in such a specific, permanent way?
Kadaj lifts his bowed head to sneer at her from between dangling slips of silver hair. The light of the crystalline materia glances off his eyes, painting them as malevolent galaxies.
"Good question," he growls.
He moves quicker than her eyes can track. Tifa feels the pressure of the impact against her chest, air rushing around her, and then the unyielding wall of the cave slams against her back. She realizes that he has maneuvered them in closer proximity to Lucrecia, and the dark hole of the exit is dishearteningly far away.
"Death is so easy, isn't it?" Kadaj taunts as he closes in on her unhurriedly, drawing his sword. Blood drips down his chin from a split lip—it is darker than it should be, almost more plum than red, and it labels him a monster. "You should know. All it took was one stab!"
He twitches, and she shifts—not fast enough. His double-bladed katana pins Tifa's shoulder to the wall, dragging a ragged cry from her. It isn't a threatening wound, but it dumps fire into her veins all the same.
"One stab, one dead Ancient, and Mother's work was ruined." Kadaj hisses the accusations into her face. Tifa can only pant and stare at him through a wince as she derives his meaning.
This is Sephiroth's revenge.
And in his eyes, death would be too merciful for her.
"You get it, don't you?" Kadaj asks through a grin, reading the understanding as it dawns within her pained expression. "There will be no Promised Land for you."
Tifa's leg flies up to land a solid kick in his abdomen. He merely absorbs the blow with a manic laugh and allows himself to be pushed away, ripping his sword from her shoulder as he goes. Tifa staggers away from the rock face and slaps her hand to the wound, feeling it quickly slicken with hot blood, and then she's ducking under Kadaj's swinging blades. After that, her speed falters. His revelation has poisoned whatever resolve she had left to fortify her body, and now it feels shaky with fatigue. In the span of a single second, he tosses the sword away and secures an iron grip around her forearms before she can straighten. Then he's whirling her and himself, swiftly dragging them across the short distance until he can deftly direct Tifa's bare, bloody hand to press against a solid beam of crystal.
The effect is immediate and inescapable.
The translucent rock sends a strange dichotomy of chill and warmth seeping into her skin. It wastes no time in crawling up and over her fingers, the back of her hand, her wrist—the sheen adhering to her appears thin, but it does not allow any forgiveness when she overcomes the short beat of shock and tries to yank herself away. The march of synthesis slows as it ascends her arm, as if it can take its time, now that it has her trapped. Layers build upon layers without signs of stopping.
Tifa emits a helpless snarl as Kadaj backs away with a dark chuckle.
"Fitting, isn't it?" he goads triumphantly—venomously—from outside her limited field of vision. "Now you'll know how Mother has felt for all these years—imprisoned."
She hears a dull scrape as Kadaj retrieves his sword.
"This has been fun." The parting salutation is spoken as if they've just played a board game or enjoyed a good movie. "But I have a reunion to get to."
And then she's alone.
Her shoulder throbs.
Her breaths rattle unevenly in the quiet.
Slowly, the adrenaline and panic fade. In their place settles a hesitant acceptance. The impulses of self-preservation gradually disengage. And while Tifa wishes, wishes from her very marrow that it hadn't been Sephiroth who placed her here, she realizes that this is no less than she deserves. Her visage stares back at her, ragged with the exertion of the fight and mounting exhaustion, but ultimately resigned.
Denzel and Marlene's faces flank her reflection in the translucent rock, and behind them stand Barret and Cid and Shera and Yuffie and Vincent and Reeve. Bless them, but they don't blame her—not anymore, at least, if they ever did at all; there was no blame in Aerith's eyes as she died, though Tifa feels it all the same. That day sent rippling shockwaves through her life and the lives of her friends. Tifa knows that they have come to understand that it needed to happen, but she is still haunted by the way they that cannot help but look at her, like they can't unsee it, like she's still holding the dagger. Their eyes hold pity that she hasn't earned and questions that she cannot answer.
The crystal slithers over her uninjured shoulder. Her entire arm is immobilized.
And then there is Cloud. Cloud, who stole a piece of her heart atop the water well in Nibelheim and captured it in totality the day that she found him in Midgar. Cloud, who saved a world that crushed him under its weight. Cloud, who adored Aerith enough to place her over that world, only to see her slain by one of his most trusted companions. Cloud, who has instilled hysterical sobs on the cusp of Tifa's lips with his mere presence these past few days. She can finally admit to herself that she loves him with every ounce of love she possesses, and she has given him and the kids anything good left within her. All that's left are the broken shards that no one should touch for fear of cutting themselves along the razor edges of her regrets.
Tifa loves him, and she destroyed him. At least, this way, he'll never have to see her or hear of her again, and maybe that will allow him a measure of closure.
Atonement, she realizes, this is atonement for the dear blood that she can still feel under her fingernails and in the crevices of her palms. Locked away here, she won't have to live with the feeling of that blood—Aerith's blood—and she won't have to worry about staining anything or anyone else with her crimson fingerprints. The symbolic image is right in front of her face. The crystal layers itself over her hand, still smeared with her own blood, and preserves the droplets like a cluster of rubies.
She won't have to look in the mirror and hate her eyes.
She won't have to rely on whiskey to appreciate the good memories that she has locked away deep in her heart.
She won't have to know that Cloud is out there, somewhere, loathing her.
Maybe she'll be able to dream.
It probably won't be the same, Tifa realizes—whatever illusion she escapes to won't fit quite right. But she pictures Cloud's endearing smirk and she doesn't care. Whatever she can conjure—even if it's nothingness—will be good enough.
The faces of her loved ones vanish, and Lucrecia's form becomes hazy as Tifa's vision begins to waver. She is suddenly so dreadfully tired that her head almost lolls on her neck, though the shimmery rock rises just in time to catch her.
The world falls away.
Tifa sleeps.
Finally.
The Shera sits on the WRO helipad, housing a solemn congregation of Cloud, Cid, Barret, Vincent, Yuffie, and Nanaki. They await news from Reeve, who is perpetually stuck on the phone as he coordinates the complex, worldwide search for the Remnants. Anxiety has made sleep elusive, and it shows on each face around the conference table—Cloud feels the tiredness in the core of his bones, made so potent by the Geostigma that even the mako within him cannot hold it at bay. He resorts to staying on his feet, leaning against the wall. If he sits, he'll probably pass out.
Minutes tick by in terse quiet, and he is grateful when someone finally says something.
"You don't think…" Yuffie, sounding oddly meek, trails off and obviously debates finishing the question. "You don't think she ran off or something, do you?"
Her words hang heavily in the room, waiting for any one of the other occupants to pick them up.
After a beat, Nanaki shakes his head. "She wouldn't do that."
Cloud barely contains a scoff, but the sound would have lacked any bite. A quick glance at everyone's expressions reveals that they understand the intense implications of such a generalization about Tifa Lockhart. The wall suddenly feels harder where his back rests against it, as if it is pushing him to speak up. He catches Barret's severe eyes on him from the head of the conference table. Cloud ignores the prompting gleam in the stare.
It's been a long time since everyone—well, nearly everyone—convened in an airship's operations room; the gathering would likely be nostalgic under different circumstances. The Shera offers roomier, more opulent accommodations than the Highwind but all the marveling at Cid's handiwork had been brief and nearly artificial in light of the situation. Cid would normally take offense to such lackluster reactions, but his face is somber through the shroud of cigarette smoke.
Now that the excitement of the earlier fight is gone, Cloud's attention is left to reside on the ominous path his thoughts were travelling before Reeve called about the attack on Edge. Tifa's words replay on a ceaseless loop and he can't silence them, can't turn off the repetitions. Again, he thinks, they weren't enough, but he cannot ignore them. On the contrary, they hound him. They spark an unsurety within him. Somehow, they make it less easy to hate her.
And he must admit, he is curious about the mystery of her whereabouts. The last he saw of her was the dark streak of her form leaping from the lowering airship ramp as they descended upon Edge. The red of her eyes was darkened with a fierce determination when she glanced back at him before jumping.
"Get Marlene to safety! I'll find Denzel."
He knows, then.
Tifa didn't run. But she isn't here.
And she would be here unless, for some reason, she couldn't be.
Cloud folds his arms in an attempt to hide how unsettled he is by the conclusion.
"Something's happened to her," he says aloud, bluntly, drawing a few looks of faint surprise.
"The hell do you mean, 'something?'" Barret rumbles the veiled accusation with a suspicious glare—Cloud has to admit that the distrust stings, but he supposes that he has given Barret reason to be wary of him where Tifa is concerned.
Cloud is careful to keep his expression blank. "She wouldn't just leave without knowing that the kids—and the rest of us—were safe."
"She has before," Yuffie points out with obvious reluctance. The memory of the Northern Crater seeps into Cloud's thoughts like venom.
"That's different," Barret barks immediately.
"How?"
This time, it is Vincent who chimes in. "She was in shock. Anyone would be, after doing what she did."
The room falls silent for several breaths. Yuffie sinks into her chair a bit, looking chastised.
"The only thing that mattered to her was making sure that the kids were safe," Cloud continues. "She didn't leave."
"I'm still waiting to hear what fucking happened, then, Spike," says Barret challengingly.
"She wasn't among the dead," Vincent supplies.
Something about that statement makes Cloud's stomach turn.
Yuffie flinches at that, but quickly perks up with an idea. "Maybe she—"
A crew mate suddenly bursts through the double doors, doubling over in a pant. His hands and knees are trembling.
"What the—!" Cid starts to rise from his seat, furious at the impolite intrusion.
"S-sir!" The young man interrupts shakily. "You need to see this!"
Three figures stand like malicious sentinels on the fringes of the wastelands around Midgar. Edge looms in the near distance, faint plumes of smoke reaching for the sky like jagged fingers.
The central of the men holds a black container aloft and unceremoniously slices it open with a quick dart of his sword.
He grins, nearly manic.
His hand slips inside and a concussive ripple billows outward, racing over the landscape.
When the dust settles, Sephiroth flexes his fingers at his sides and turns to face the cascade of dawn's colors. The arc of the sun is beginning to peek over the horizon, chasing tart orange into gold into the lingering indigo of night.
He clenches a fist.
The colors die to inky clouds, fat with rain and crackling with electricity.
Satisfied, Sephiroth turns and steps toward Midgar.
"No," Aerith whispers as Zack lets loose a guttural curse.
A/N: Special thank you's to Ghibli Ninja, 25BAM50, verdance, and everyone else who has left a kind note in the review section! Each of you are awesome :) I typically respond to reviews if there's enough substance to them to feed a reply, so check your inbox if you end up leaving one!