Chapter warnings: SMUT, some blood

Happy Friday!

I hope you all had a good week! Things have been crazy on my end; work is hectic and so is life in general lol, but at least it's gotten colder so I could pull out all of my blankets and sweaters :) Also as usual, huge thank you to silver-doe287 for editing this chapter! Idk why I make so many little typos lol

Enjoy the chapter :)


Moonlight brushed a loving hand against the windowsill. It then slipped down the to the floor and lingered there, quiet and blushing, while stars flickered up above and clouds whispered across a twilight sky. Crickets chirped between stalks of wheat. Chickens faintly clucked as they settled in the murky dusk. Something rustled the grasses, a hush of wind pushed through the sweeping tree branches, and peace murmured throughout the Strife property.

A faint moan broke through the night.

Tifa Strife's breaths steamed the air as she slipped a second finger deeper into her slit. The tip slid in effortlessly and warm slick coated her finger; it seeped out of her entrance, gathered at her junction, and smeared against her thighs as tension coiled deep in her belly. It was a knot that twisted and flipped and rippled with every push against her hard nub, and her eyelashes fluttered as another moan trickled out from her throat.

I wish Cloud was here.

The thought slipped across her mind without her bidding, and then it was all she could think about. Her mind was filled with the thought of her husband; of his easy smiles, his gentle laughs, how his calloused fingers were always so soft against hers. She thought about how his gaze would linger on her wedding band, how his expression would soften a moment before lifting to meet her eyes.

Her back arched off of the bed as she recalled other things, too; such as the way his cock would push against the walls of her slit, his small gasps when she'd nip his ear, the way he would lose their rhythm as he rocked against her, hips bucking, eyes rolling, hot breaths splashing between them as if there wasn't enough air in the room…

Another breathless moan spilled from her lips as she, unable to stand it a moment longer, slid in a third finger and ground against it. Tension built and heat gathered within her. The bedsheets tented between her open legs. Cold air clashed against the warmth of her body as she quickened the pace, and her body rocked against her fingers. Hot slick gathered between her legs, and her breaths became uneven, rapid, uncontrolled as she thought about one thing:

Cloud.

The stunning heat that had pooled within her expanded, exploded, released, and then fire flicked across her skin and stars danced in her eyes. She had the faint sense that someone had cried out, and that that someone was her.

But then it was over.

The lava that had burned through her very core faded all too quickly, and it left nothing but unsatisfying ash and dust in its wake. Through the ringing in her ears, she could make out the brush of curtains and the distant howls of coyotes and other creatures, and the chill of the nightly air replaced the fire that had singed her nerves just moments before. She let her head fall back with a breathless sigh, and her dark hair fanned across the pillow as she thought:

Where is Cloud now?

Her carmine eyes traced the imperfections of the ceiling as her panting slowly evened. By her reckoning, he and Zack should have made it through Rocket Town by now. If they had hurried they might have been able to reach Corel by tonight, but the mountains were treacherous and Cloud wasn't used to cattle driving – not like Zack was anyway, as he had been raising cattle for several years now.

No, they would be camping in the mountains somewhere, she decided wouldn't rush a cattle drive – it simply wasn't in his nature, even if he did seem over-eager for money recently – but even if he was so inclined, Zack probably wouldn't let him anyway. Zack always did seem to have a way with Cloud… though maybe it was only because he had been Cloud's superior back in their Ranger days.

But that was a long time ago, she reminded herself, and she slowly sat upright and stretched her arms above her with a muffled groan. Her shoulders popped from the effort. It was hard work managing the entire property by herself, though there wasn't much left to do; she had already done all of the laundry, had tended to her small garden, and had even made a fresh loaf of bread for the week. All that was left was to monitor the wheat fields, plan out their finances for the next few months – including decided how to price the wheat for sale, which filled her with dread – and then sharpen the tools required to cull the wheat…

She rubbed her eyes; just thinking about what was left exhausted her, but she knew that it would be worth it. Having everything already prepared for the harvest would be a nice surprise for Cloud when he returned. But hopefully when he does return, she thought as she glanced out of the foggy window, he'll return far rich -

But the thought was cutoff halfway because at that exact moment, something moved. Tifa's gaze narrowed; the windowpane's glass was warped and murky, which made it difficult to see, and all she could make out was a darker silhouette against the night. Yet a few moments later, when it passed beneath the silver light of the moon, she could see it clearly: a rider astride a horse, their head angled towards the house.

Tifa pushed herself off the bed, lips lightly parted in confusion as adrenaline flickered through her. Cloud? she wondered, but then immediately pushed it aside. Of course that wasn't Cloud. Cloud was miles upon miles away, and besides, this rider was built far bigger than Cloud was. While Cloud was more on the leaner side, this man was built like a tree; his shoulders stretched the fabric of his shirt while his chest pulled at the buttons, and a cruel smirk – an expression she knew that Cloud would never make – was cut crooked into his square face. As for the rider's horse, it was a large, speckled stallion while Rain was a rich, caramel-coated mare.

In summary, this man was certainly not Cloud.

Disappointment lingered in her chest, but she impatiently pushed it aside for more logical sensibilities. Is he lost? she wondered as she put on a thin slip, just to appear more modest… as well as hide any evidence of her earlier activities. Has to be, to end up way out here…

She glanced to the window once again, and was surprised to see the rider – still off by the main gate – already staring inside. Their eyes met through the glass, and he smiled in response. His teeth were startlingly white. His lips were thin and pale. Something glimmered in his eyes, something that had a shiver crawling up Tifa's spine, and then her gaze dropped towards his hands.

He was holding a knife.

She could see its wickedly sharp edge glint beneath the starlit sky, could see how its hilt twisted and disappeared beneath the man's large hand, and all thoughts that this was just a simple lost rider went stagnant. For him to be holding a knife before he even tried knocking on the door…

… Well, he was either extremely paranoid or he wasn't here to ask for directions, and if Tifa was a betting woman, she would bet on the latter.

So she grabbed a gun. Cloud always kept a Springfield Trapdoor rifle hidden in the dresser 'just in case,' and its metal was cold in her grasp as she lifted it out from behind the dresser's false back. As it was Cloud's rifle back when he had been a Ranger, it was worn with both time with use, but it had also been well cared for and its condition was as flawless as the day it had been made. With practiced hands she loaded a bullet, her fingers brushing across its ice-cold brass casing, before she cocked the hammer and rested it onto her shoulder.

There was a knock on the door.

Her heart hammered in her chest as she made a move towards the door – the stranger had seen her through the window, so it was too late to pretend to be asleep – and yet something held her back. Her hand tightened against the gun.

"Who is it?" she demanded. There – a safe question.

A grunt, then: "Loz. Loz Simmel," the strange rider replied. His gruff voice was muffled by the door. "Can I come inside?"

Come inside? Every sense within her screamed to keep this stranger out of her home, and she shouted, "If it's directions you're after, then I'll shout'em through the door!"

The stranger, Loz, laughed. It was a dry, scuttling sort of sound, much like a cockroach rummaging the undergrowth. "Directions?" he repeated, chuckling all the while. "No ma'am, I ain't want directions. I'm lookin' for someone. You're Tifa Simmel, correct?"

"Strife," Tifa corrected immediately, though the word Simmel became tangled in her thoughts. She had a feeling like she had come across that name before, though she couldn't remember why… "There aren't any Simmels here," she continued, "but if you go 'bout a half-days ride towards the east, you'll come cross a town -"

"No?" Loz interrupted, sounding genuinely surprised. "But… But he said..." His voice trailed off, and then he mumbled, "Did big brother lie to me?"

Big brother? "Listen," she began, "there ain't any Simmels on this property, or any of the properties near here. Now you best be leaving, but I wish you the best of luck on your search…"

With that she began to turn away, but then Loz shouted, "No!" The force of his shout just about rattled the doorframe. "If you're Tifa, then my big brother said that you have to come with me. That way, we can surprise our other brother," he added, his tone pitching upward. "Sephiroth said that he'd really like that."

"Sephiroth?" Tifa quietly echoed, and then it clicked: Of course. The continent's most infamous outlaw Sephiroth Simmel, the man solely responsible for the robbery and butchering of a dozen towns, who had also been sentenced to maximum-security jail back in the city of Midgar. Rumor had it that he also had a younger brother who was just as deadly and cruel, if not more so, to the point of being called a devil…

And right now, she realized in abject horror, that younger brother is standing right outside my front door.

"Leave!" Her grip tightened on the rifle. "If you don't, I'll -"

"You'll what?" he asked, and then he suddenly hit the door. The wood creaked and splintered beneath the heavy blow, and Tifa's harsh gasp clawed out from her throat. "Sorry, but I gotta take you with me. My big brother asked me to."

He hit the door again. The door cracked, and Tifa immediately knew that it wouldn't hold even a handful more hits. Whether she liked it or not, that man would be getting into her home… and he probably didn't have just a knife on him.

So she turned and ran. Her bare feet slapped against the cold floorboards as she threw herself behind a corner. The door groaned as it was broken and crushed. Its hinges squealed as it bent, and then with a loud crack, the door broke away entirely.

A chilly night breeze pushed its way into the house, and with it came the sent of sage, rain, and metal. Icy terror trickled down her veins as she pressed herself into the back wall, her fingers clenched around the rifle, and waited, listened as the floorboards groaned beneath heavy footsteps and muffled breathing hissed against the walls.

"I don't wanna hurt you," Loz was saying. His voice suddenly had a child-like quality to it, as if he was confused by her hiding. "We just wanna surprise our other brother. I've never met him, see? Even though we're family."

Tifa hadn't known that Sephiroth had a third brother, but at that point, she really didn't care. Now or never, she told herself, then sharply inhaled and flung herself into the hallway.

Loz loudly cursed as he backpedalled, his silver hair nearly luminous in the dark, and then she saw his pistol gleam in the dim light. Yet she tried her best to ignore it, and only crouched down – just like Cloud had taught her long ago – and pressed the butt of the rifle against her shoulder, exhaled a calming breath, and then pulled the trigger.

Yet nothing happened but a dull click.

Tifa's eyes widened in alarm – Did I do it wrong? Did I forget to load it? - but then it hit her:

The gun's jammed.

The blood drained from her face as realization settled cold in her gut. It jammed, her mind repeated in numb horror, and then the rifle was suddenly kicked from her hands. Pain lanced up her wrists as the gun skidded uselessly across the floor.

"Damn gyp," Loz hissed as he lowered his leather-leg. "You could'v shot me." His voice had a twisted, mocking edge to it, and yet it was his eyes that had Tifa's eyes widening. She hadn't noticed before but they were slitted like a cats and were an unnatural shade of green, like dyed jade or mold bleached by the sun…

Her eyes widened further. He's not a man, she realized with deathly stillness, but a devil. With slitted eyes like that he had to be, and then she was backpedaling, her breaths raw and grating against her throat. Fear scorched her nerves and left her shaking, teeth chattering, darkness trickling in the corners of her vision like night creeping across a blushing sky.

Everything about Sephiroth Simmel's younger brother had been true: He truly was a devil.

Loz stepped over the rifle on his way towards her, his slitted eyes pinned on her the entire while. His lips were curved into a sharp frown, the sort of frown that promised a tragedy, and the floorboards were cold against Tifa's palms as she pushed herself backwards. Pain flared in her wrist, but she hardly noticed. "Get away from me," she hissed between clenched teeth. "Don't come any closer."

Yet the green-eyed devil didn't seem to have heard, or perhaps he was just ignoring her outright. "Listen here," he began. His one hand grasped a dagger; the other carried a sleek pistol. "I'd rather we not fight, you understand me? Because you see, my big brother said that I gotta take care of you. Get you back to 'im in one piece, because if I don't, our other brother would be upset."

But Tifa had hardly heard him. While he had been speaking he had taken slow, deliberate steps towards her, and she couldn't tear her gaze away from the light dancing strangely in his eyes. "Stay away," she hissed. She backed up until she could back up no further, until the bumps and ridges of her back pressed uncomfortably against the wall, and her chest rose and fell with every panicked breath. "Get away from me."

"But you see, I think I jus' realized somethin'." He spun his pistol in his other hand, the finger caught in the trigger. "Because I've been wonderin' why you said there ain't no Simmels here, but then I remembered the sign on the arch outside. Strife," he sounded out, slowly and deliberately, as if he was testing the word on his tongue. "Sounds close. But not quite."

"Leave," she ground out. She had listened to these crazy rambling for long enough, and sh forced her legs to stand and her trembling arms to push herself upright. Loz only lifted a delicate, silver eyebrow. "Don't come any closer."

"Or what?"

The thin skirt of her slip spilled over her calf as she lowered her center of gravity. "Or this," Tifa replied and snapped forward, her hand cocked back in a tight fist. The man didn't expect it; his slitted eyes widened as her knuckles connected with the swell of his cheekbone, and then he was stumbling backwards, hand pressed against the new bruise and curses spilling from his lips.

She may be a housewife now, but once upon a time she had owned a bar and had broken up more than her fair share of brawls. Fighting with her fists came far more naturally than guns, but she also wasn't stupid. Her fists would be useless against daggers or pistols.

She darted into the kitchen, hair undone and wild as she slammed open one of the cupboards. Her trembled hands scrambled for a knife, panic sloshing within her like an overfilled glass, until something – a hand on her throat – yanked her backwards. There wasn't even enough time to blink before she was slammed against the ground. Stars spun dizzily around her.

"You'll pay for that, gyp," Sephiroth's younger brother ground out. A fresh bruise was already blossoming against his pale cheek and blood trickled from his nose, only to drip to the ground and stain the light wood a shade of scarlet. "See, I tried to be nice to you an' all seein' as how yer family now, but -"

Tifa twisted her body and, with a pained grunt, wrapped her thighs around his neck and pushed. His words were cut off by a wheeze, one that was accented by his back slamming against the ground. Shelves rattled. Dressers shook. Cups and mugs clinked about behind glass cupboards. One fell and shattered as Tifa scrambled onto her feet, wrist flaring painfully, but she didn't notice. Everything within her had collapsed into one singular focus:

I need a weapon.

With her next breath she was at the knife drawer, but this time she was quicker. Her fingers wrapped around the icy handle of a knife – a paring knife, she realized a half-second later – and then she was swinging, the dwarfed blade flashing she thrust it downward… but then he moved, a blur of motion, and a harsh metallic sound rang clear in the air as her knife slammed down onto his dagger.

Rage flickered in his slitted eyes. "You'll regret that," he hissed, and then there was a dull click as he cocked his pistol. She saw it a moment later, saw its black barrel aimed directly at the center of her chest, saw how it hovered unmoving in his pale hand.

Any thought within her sputtered and died as she realized, with crystal clarity, just how fragile she was. If she got shot by something like that…

"Drop the knife," he ordered.

Bright madness flickered in Loz's horribly slitted eyes, and Tifa only clenched her jaw and gripped the knife all the tighter. If she was going to die -

- I'm sorry, Cloud -

- then she was going to die fighting.


From Cloud's viewpoint on the mountainside, the stars looked eternal, ethereal, and untouchable. Not even the moon's silver glow could chase away the faint blinks in the sky, their numbers so vast that they appeared to be more like dusty clouds sweeping the heavens than individual pinpricks of light. Nebulas swept across the night like abstract art. Clouds created hazy patchworks within the diamond-like clusters. Wolves sang their questions to the moon, and their answers echoed hauntingly through the deep canyons and valleys that made up the Corel mountain range.

The stars above and the mountain air below, filled with its songs and rustles, painted an idyllic picture, and yet Cloud could not find rest. His eyes felt like sandpaper, yet they remained stubbornly open. His gaze flicked from tree to tree. His hand remained draped on his pistol. Firelight from their cheery campfire stained his blue eyes a bloody scarlet, and his thoughts tumbled backwards as he recalled the day.

Even though Zack had noticed something was wrong earlier, his questions and worried looks had gotten the dark-haired man nowhere. Cloud had remained tight-lipped and only said his well-rehearsed lines: Everything is fine. Just want to get to Corel soon. Just tired and sore is all.

It was all a lie. His breath stuttered between his lips as he thought, I couldn't say it. He had wanted to tell Zack about Sephiroth the moment he had seen him, but the words had died in his throat and rotted on his tongue. Doubts spun wild in his mind: What if I'm wrong? What if I was just seeing things? What if that was someone else? - and he wished, with desperate abandon, that all of his doubts were true. He wished it with every fiber of his being, because to reopen that particular scar and bleed it freely upon the ground… Well, he needed to be certain. He had to know.

He went for a walk.

He got up, as quietly as possible so he did not disturb Zack or the horses, and he began an upward trek. The valley they were camped in was cradled between two mountain peaks, and their jagged edges were cut by granite and windswept, worn-down trunks that appeared like ghosts beneath the silver night. Proud pines formed green clusters against the crags. Loose rubble shifted beneath his boots. His legs, sore from riding, screamed in protest as he ascended the mountain-side, and yet he did not stop until the campfire was an orange fleck far below him and he could count the herd within the mountain's shadow, until their white bodies formed constellations that mirrored the stars.

He watched them for a moment, expression unreadable, before he turned around and continued walking. Something drove him on; a wild notion, a haunted memory, a vague sense that a tragedy was approaching and, much like standing in front of a moving train, he could only wait patiently to get mowed down. But wait he did, with his arms outstretched and chin held high, because if fate had taught him one thing it was that the train was coming… and the least he could do was greet it when it arrived.

The moon lit the path before him and softened the edges of the rocks he trod on, making the world seem kinder and gentler by comparison. It was almost peaceful way out here with only the stars for company, and as he tilted his chin towards the sky and his exhale misted the nebulas, he wondered if he really had been imagining things earlier. Maybe exhaustion and his back-to-back rides were making him see things, because Sephiroth couldn't be here… could he? They were out in the middle of nowhere, after all. The odds of him actually being here…

I'm being ridiculous, Cloud told himself with a faint shake of his head, and he had almost talked himself into returning to the herd and getting some sleep when a hawk's cry pierced the night.

Hawks were not nocturnal animals. They hunted during the day and slept during the night, and besides, there was a strange lilt to this cry, a warp that no hawk could ever imitate.

Worse: he recognized that cry. Goosebumps peppered his skin as his feet moved forward without thinking, much like a puppet hanging by the strings of old memories. Every step brought him closer to a grove of pine trees nestled against a crook in the ridge, and though something within him screamed in protest with every dragging footfall, his walk nevertheless continued. The trees' sweeping branches blotted out the sky as he passed underneath them. Their needles bit into his skin as he brushed them aside. The underbrush cracked and crinkled beneath his boots, and the stars vanished behind a ceiling of thorns and sharp edges.

Then he saw it: a tinge of orange against the grove's mossy green. Firelight flickered, hidden in the dark, and cold dread curled deep in his gut.

No.

It was a nameless sort of weight, a heaviness that no combination of words could describe.

Please, no.

Each step felt like he was walking towards something's end, a finality that he couldn't put his finger on, the knowledge that he would be walking out of this grove changed.

This can't be happening.

He wanted to turn around, to run away and stumble down the gravel until he was back beside his cheery campfire yet his legs forced him onward, one step at a time, until firelight flickered across his pallid features and his gaze rested on the back of a man he knew so well.

Sephiroth.

His hair had gotten longer since Cloud had seen him last; whereas Sephiroth's silver hair had been cropped short, it was now loosely tied back in a ponytail that nearly kissed the ground. His shoulders had also broadened, and nestled on his hip was a familiar pistol with an abalone hilt. Scars, little more than a silver lines, crisscrossed his wrists and hands.

"Well?" Sephiroth's smooth, deep voice carried across the grove, and Cloud just about flinched. "Aren't you going to say something?"

It took Cloud a moment to find his voice, but once it did… "What are you doing here?" he managed to croak out. He crossed his arms across his chest to hide the faint trembling in his hands. "You… You're supposed to be..."

"And where am I supposed to be, Cloud?" There was a rustle of fabric as Sephiroth got to his feet, and then he slowly turned around. He was a full head taller than Cloud, which would have forced the younger man to tilt his head to meet his older brother's eyes.

Yet Cloud did not raise his head. Instead he kept his gaze straight forward, wide-eyed with lips parted in mounting horror, as the urge to run sang shrill through his veins… but if he had looked up, he might have noticed that Sephiroth's eyes were green instead of blue. He might have also noticed that they were slitted in a way no human being's eyes were… but because he did not look up, he did not notice anything at all but the dirt he stood on.

He also didn't notice Sephiroth's smile, which was little more than a pale slit against his lips. "Tell me," he ordered, and he reached forward to place a gloved hand on Cloud's shoulder. The younger man jerked as if he had been struck. "Tell me," Sephiroth said again, and his voice lifting into the demand. "Where do you think I should be, brother?"

Cloud didn't want to say it, and yet his traitorous body responded anyway. "M – Midgar," he said in little more than a breathless gasp. How small he suddenly felt. "You're… supposed to be in Midgar."

Because I put you there, a small part of him whispered.

"That's right." The grip on his shoulder tightened, almost to the point of becoming painful. "And I've had a lot of time to think since then, Cloud. A lot of time to contemplate how we wound up on such different paths despite our similar upbringing. And then I realized something."

Cloud held his breath as he waited for his older brother's next words.

"I realized," Sephiroth continued slowly, "that I was too lenient with you. That I put too much trust in you, and because of that, you overestimated your worth." Sephiroth took a step backward then; his eyes were strangely bright as he looked down at Cloud, and his pistol glinted in the firelight as he loftily continued, "But I have returned. Of course, I have since then found a new family -" Cloud winced "- but I am willing to forgive you for what you have done. But there will be consequences."

Consequences, Cloud's mind echoed, and he closed his eyes. "… No."

There was a pause, then: "No?"

"I'm not going back, Seph. I'm not… I'm not a killer anymore." His voice was fragile, as if he was once again eleven and unsure of the world. His hands clenched into fists. "I don't want to hurt anyone anymore, and I don't want to steal anything. I… I just can't live like that again. That's not a life, that's just…"

a prison sentence. Yet whatever he had been about to say died in his tongue, because at that moment he lifted his head and his blue eyes met Sephiroth's emerald gaze.

He paled. "Seph… your eyes. What… What happened to you? By Shiva, your eyes..."

Sephiroth's gaze hardened. "Don't play the hypocrite, Cloud," he nearly snarled -

– and then, without warning, stars exploded in Cloud's vision and he hit the ground, hard. Confusion laced his thoughts; he hadn't even seen Sephiroth's movements, yet now his ears were ringing and the taste of copper filled his mouth. All he could do was blink blindly at a spinning world and fumble to get his arms beneath him. What just…

"I didn't return to listen to your false brotherly sympathy or your emotional ramblings." Sephiroth's voice was just as cold and sharp as splinters of ice. "After you ensured that I would be sentenced to death, I killed any familial attachments I might have felt towards you, and I suggest you do the same."

"Then why… are you here?" Cloud ground out. Blood stained his teeth pink, and his lip stung from where it had split. Warmth trickled down his chin and dripped freely onto the ground. "Why come back?"

Sephiroth smiled at that, yet it held no joy nor warmth. It was all teeth and sharp edges, and he knelt so that Cloud and he could see eye to eye. "Because I want you on your knees," he stated, voice low and hard. "I want your head bowed and your hands bleeding. I want my name to taste like blood on your tongue; I want to make you repent."

Cloud lifted his head defiantly. "And if I don't?"

"If you don't, then I will have my men kill the woman you call your wife. Tifa, correct?… Ah, must be," he added as the blood drained from Cloud's face. "Pretty thing. Dark hair, nice smile. I'm impressed Cloud, and yet also… surprised. While I was rotting away in a jail cell," he murmured, the words dripping from his lips like poison, "you decided that it would be okay if you got yourself a family? Was I not good enough, even though I saved you from -"

"You wouldn't hurt her," Cloud cut in. Panic thrummed his veins; his ears rang, and not from his recent blow. "Not even you would -"

"Stoop that low?" Sephiroth finished. Madness warmed his slitted eyes, and his smile sharpened. "Cloud, if you truly believe that after all the time we spent together… then you must not have been paying attention." With that his gaze briefly dropped down to his pistol, to the abalone hilt that mirrored the dancing fire, before it darted back up to Cloud. "You recognize this gun, don't you?"

Cloud thickly swallowed, and said nothing.

"As I thought," Sephiroth hummed, and stood back up to his full height. Turning towards the flame so that his back faced Cloud, he continued, "In Corel there's something that I desire. The mayor of that town – Barret Wallace, I believe his name is – has a key to the town jail in his desk, as well as a pretty five thousand gil. I want both the key and the money in two days time. Meet me outside of town beside the old well. And one more thing," he added as Cloud slowly, painfully, pushed himself upright. "If you tell that Ranger friend of yours that we spoke… Well, I suppose that means that you aren't as close to your wife as I thought. Which would be regrettable, though I would take great pleasure in killing her myself."

Cloud glared at him. "I wish you had died," he spit out. "I wish I had killed you back then."

"I'm certain you do," Sephiroth replied with a chilling smile. "But unfortunately, neither of us got what we really desired, now did we?"

But I did, Cloud thought for a brief, wild moment. He had gotten everything he had ever wanted: someone to love, someone who loved him in return, some land of his own, a home on top of it. He had even gotten friends – good friends, the sort that he could be proud of – and a life that had him wondering if this was all an elaborate dream.

But of course, as it was the case in all dreams, eventually he had to wake up. He only wished that he didn't have to wake up so soon, that he could flip the pillow to the colder side and ask for five more minutes – just five, because his heart had become brittle from basking in the sun for too long, and he couldn't remember what blood tasted like anymore.

"Well?" Sephiroth's cool voice floated across the grove and tugged Cloud out of his thoughts. "Do we have a deal?"

Cloud closed his eyes -

- I'm sorry, Tifa -

- and slowly opened his eyes once more. Their blue was harder now, colder, a tempered storm that raged above dark waters.

"Deal," he replied, and damned himself to hell.


So I swear that this story will have a happy ending... but in the meantime, I'm just gonna drown myself in the feels :)

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the chapter! Quick announcement: the holidays are coming up, and I have a feeling it'll impact my writing schedule (aka, things may slow down a bit...). That said, I'll continue posting chapter snippets and writing updates on my twitter (link in profile) so that everyone will have a rough idea of when the next chapter will arrive! You can find a link to my ko-fi on my profile as well if you'd like to support my work, but there's absolutely no pressure to do so - if you're happy with the story, then I'm happy :)

Until next time: Stay well, stay safe, and I wish you all the best :)