Chapter 10. April εуλ0001- April εуλ0002

Solitude was Tifa's new closest companion. With Cloud's departure, the last person she was willing to call a friend was gone, leaving her with only the erratic attentions of her father to break the routine.

She thought about Cloud a lot.

What had possessed her to make the promise she had? Emotions of a desperate girl, feeling pained that there was no one left to pay her attention? She didn't think she was… quite so selfish. No, she remembered feeling genuinely scared and sad when he told her, prompting a panicked request from loneliness inside.

What had really surprised her was his acceptance of her request, that he would commit himself to her in that way. It touched her heart in a way she hadn't' expected, a gentle flutter brushing her ribs. What did that mean, really?

Did she have a crush on Cloud? Probably.

Did she feel something... more?

Maybe.

She wished she'd have a chance to find out.

In the meantime, ennui filled her days. It might have been different if she had lived on one of the outlying farms and had chores from sunup to sundown to keep her occupied. But nooooooo, she was a pampered mayor's daughter, such things were not for her. She wondered if she should go find a cow to milk just-because.

Instead, she filled long hours at the piano, plucking out a mournful tune, spilling her stymied hopes and dreams into the keys before her.

That's when he came to town.

She'd been climbing trees when she first saw him.

A young man, spry of step, climbing the road up to the village like it was nothing. As he drew closer, however, she was surprised to see he was, in fact, much older than she had thought.

How, then, does he move like someone so much younger?

Fifties, something, she estimated, looking at his weather-beaten face, a moderately shaggy beard in need of a trim. He wore simple, utilitarian clothes, unrestricting in movement, bearing dust of long traveling.

Anyone making it up to Nibelheim would have been traveling for a while.

She'd thought she'd been well hidden in her perch, but to her surprise, the man stopped right underneath. "You might as well come down, young lady," he said. "I saw you from all the way down the hill."

Tifa sighed, and dropped to the ground, coming face to face with the man.

He looked her up and down. "You've got good form," he approved. "But what are you doing climbing trees in a skirt?"

"It suits me," she replied defensively. "Anyhow, there's shorts lined inside. Who are you, anyway? Why are you commenting on my outfit? Oh, and I'm Tifa," she finished lamely, belatedly remembering her manners.

The man seemed amused. "I'm Zangan," he replied. "And to your other question, I noticed because that's part of what I do. I'm a teacher. I teach martial arts." He looked around. "I've got a hundred twenty-seven students all over the world. But this is somewhere I've never been yet. Seems like a nice place."

"Teacher?" Tifa asked. "Like, do you help people join SOLDIER and stuff?"

"Not exactly, though I know a lot about SOLIDIER as it turns out." Zangan seemed amused. "Why, young lady, are you thinking about joining?"

Tifa thought about that. Cloud and I, working together… "Do they even allow women to join?"

Zangan scratched his beard. "They do… but it doesn't happen very often," he began the explanation. "Women… they can usually handle the Mako infusions better. They have the sorts of emotional connections needed for mental fitness. But the physical part of the training is so intense… If they think a man can handle the mental crush of the Mako, they'll toughen him up physically. Send him to the army for a few years first. But most women, they just can't get to that level of physical conditioning. It's just kind of the way it is." He looked at her appraisingly. "You seem to be a sharp young woman, they'd probably steer you towards the Turks. Less dangerous – most of the time. Pays better too."

"Oh." Tifa's hopes dropped. She wondered how Cloud was handling the physical training – he'd been so tiny as a child. But then suddenly, he started to grow up fast – what did he even look like now?

She was proud of him for trying.

"But, seriously," Zangan continued. "Why so eager to join Shinra, anyway?"

"I'm not," Tifa told him. She wasn't. Really, she had no desire to go to Midgar. She thought of Cloud over there, promised to be her hero – but he was so far… She needed to be able to take care of herself. Take some responsibility, instead of waiting for someone to come save her.

At the very least, she could meet him as an equal.

"I want to learn to fight," she told him. "I can't just wait for someone to protect me. I need to be able to protect myself."

There was just one more obstacle to overcome – her father.

Ever since that fall she couldn't remember, her father had warned her to stay away from the mountain. She hadn't listened of course, escaping to scramble over rocks and through bushes whenever she could, the beauty of the mountain's lower reaches giving her solace.

But Zangan insisted, if he was to teach her.

"You must be strong in both mind and spirit," he told her. "Think of it as your first test."

She reminded herself she was no longer a little girl – she was a grown woman, now – but nevertheless, she found herself tongue-tied around her father.

She explained, haltingly, what she wanted to do and why. As she spoke, though, something almost kind of magical happened – she found herself more sure of her words, sure of herself.

Brian turned to Zangan. "Is this the kind of ideas you are putting in my daughter's head?" he half-snarled.

"Your daughter can think for herself," Zangan replied smoothly. "Speak to her, not me."

Tifa noticed Zangan wasn't saying a word to defend her choice, only to correct her father's behavior. She took a deep breath.

"Look, Papa," she continued reasonably. "Zangan knows what he is doing. I'll be safe." She turned to Zangan. "It's okay. I think I can take it from here."

"I'll see you soon, Tifa," Zangan said behind him as he left.

As soon as the other man was out the door, Brian slumped in the chair, burying his head in his hands. He let out a long exhale.

Tifa patiently waited for him to speak.

"Tifa," he began. "I suppose I knew this day would come. I can't keep you a little girl forever."

"I'm not a girl anymore, Papa," she gently reminded him.

"I know," he replied, "but sometimes a father wants to pretend." He swallowed. "And ever since your mother… died… you've been all I have left. Not just you, but all I have left of her, too. All my loves rolled into one."

He stood and paced. "I was so afraid that day, Tifa. The day you fell. I almost lost you I couldn't have taken it if I did, you were all I was still living for. To lose both of you so close… it would have broken me apart. I guess I've wanted to keep you safe ever since. Maybe I've been trying too hard."

Tifa was surprised to see tears in her father's eyes. "You almost died, Tifa, do you understand that? You were the only thing I had left to live for, and you almost died, too. If you had – " Choked up, suddenly her big, strong father was openly weeping.

And Tifa realized he was only a man, after all.

Only a man…

Brian Lockhart looked at his daughter then, and despite his often-gruff exterior, Tifa recognized the soft-hearted man she knew inside. "Tifa," he told her gently, "I don't want to lose you. Remember that. I couldn't take it. But if that man knows what he's doing…" He gulped. "Well. I'm willing to let you try."

Tifa let out a whoop, and threw her arms around her father's neck with enthusiasm. He hugged her awkwardly back. "Be careful, please," he half-reminded, half-begged.

"I will," Tifa said. "I promise."

And for the chance to try, she would.

Training was… not what Tifa had expected.

"When do I get to fight?" she whined one day.

"Patience," Zangan told her placidly. "Anyone can throw a few punches. I'm trying to teach you a mentality here."

He'd have her sit for ten minutes, twenty minutes, an hour – not doing anything, just sitting – and at first it made her skin crawl, itching to be doing something, anything. It was made all the more worse that he left her alone, insisting that solitude, loneliness, was part of the lesson she had to learn. But slowly she started to understand. The longer she sat, the more she became aware of her surroundings – the sounds of the animals large and small, the smells of the forest even to the occasionally-putrid odors coming from the reactor –the air itself, the way it caressed the soft hairs of her skin.

"My feet fall asleep," she complained once.

"Deal with it," was Zangan's answer.

Even when she started something she felt could be called actually fighting, she found it went maddeningly slow. Zangan only let her move inch. By. Painstaking. Inch. Correcting her every motion, to make it more fluid, more direct.

"You'll rarely have the advantage of strength," he told her, "so you'll have to make every bit of advantage you DO have count."

I'm bored, Tifa started to complain.

This time, she wisely shut up.

He'd warned her that he might not stay a month, maybe two, but as summer rolled into fall, and he was still there, she felt brave enough to ask him why he stayed.

He looked at her sharply. "I like training you," he told her with unexpected bluntness. "You've got good sense. It's been a rewarding experience."

"Not my charming company?" Tifa teased her teacher with the easy camaraderie they had developed.

He chuckled. "Maybe a little of that too." His expression turned grave. "Tifa, you're an incredible woman with so much potential to do so many things. In all seriousness, I hope you find your way to a wonderful life, one that has meaning for you. And someone who deserves you as well."

Tifa was touched. No one had said anything like that to her in a long time – well, since her mother died. It was the sort of words that were beyond her father.

It was a measure of the role Zangan was beginning to play in her life.

She was regretting ever complaining of boredom when Zangan finally did start to open her up to fighting, pushing her a little further each day, but always with that infiintesmal correctness. Nothing less than perfection would do. He'd drill her over and over, hours on end. Once more. Start again. Good, that was better. Now once more. Start again.

"How many times?" Tifa finally cried out in exasperation.

"As many as it takes," was Zangan's reply.

She wondered why she was still asking questions.

Her body started to respond, groaning into awakeness as underused muscles were brought into play. Some days, Zangan's training would leave her trembling and shaking, as she gritted her teeth through the pain to do it one more time.

And then she'd be lying in bed, sore and exhausted, wondering what she was doing and why.

Yet somehow it never occurred to her to quit.

Cloud would be so proud of her if he could see her now. It was only him she thought of in this respect. She couldn't see that any of her other friends would have cared; she wondered now if they had only ever seen her as object, idol, something to be possessed.

One day, she looked in the mirror, and realized with a start – she could see the changes on her skin. Under her skin. Faint definition where before their had been nothing. Experimentally, she flexed a bicep – yep, it was there.

She leaned backwards and looked over at her legs. When had spindly legs started to show neat curves of calf and thigh? She had a long way to go from the gangly teenager she was, but something was visibly happening, and the thought encouraged her.

She kept her skirts, with some alterations – they tuned out to be remarkably suited for fighting. Zangan approved, but not for the reasons she thought.

"Martial arts is all a mind trick. Men have their weak points too," Zangan told her, "and in more ways than one. Your looks can be a weapon too, in the right circumstances."

"Huh," Tifa said. She'd never really thought of things that way. She'd gotten used to getting attention from boys, yes, but she'd never much thought about the why, it only leaving her feeling insecure and unsure as to who saw her for who she really was.

Actually, she knew the answer to that. Cloud.

She wondered if he'd like the way she looked now.

The true joy was when she was deemed competent enough to safely explore the mountain. She reveled in her newfound freedom to clamber all over, only restraining herelf out of courtesy for her father. But as he became accustomed to his daughter's new routine, he gave his blessing to go up with Zangan first, then, nervously, alone.

Mt. Nibel was a dead thornbush; the nearer she got to the top, the more she realized how the reactor had sucked the life right out of it. She'd still find mako vents, pockets of vitality bubbling up from within. The climb to the top was ever steeper; her knees soon bled, and she wondered how to cover herself better next time.

But the view from the top was incredible – she could see for miles in all directions, places further than she had ever been. And suddenly, she was afflicted with a longing to go see some of those places, see the world outside of Nibelheim.

One day I'll cross the mountain, she made her silent promise.