Dedication this chapter goes to SKEvans, writer on this site. She just completed "The Stars We Dreamed Of", and I loved it (blatant promotion). SK, I was looking for a dedication for you, and given the intense action of "Stars", I'm giving you THE NIBELHEIM INCIDENT.
Chapter 17. September 30, εуλ0002
Tifa woke up to the flames.
The heat, the burn, reaching up to the second story where she slept, threatening upwards with their licks and tendrils.
She ran downstairs, flushed and frightened. Her father gone. Tearing outside, dry tinder crackling, the fire expanding by the moment before her eyes. Cloud's house beside hers, already half consumed, as helplessly she wondered if Claudia had made it out as well – or if she'd been immolated, consumed in her sleep.
She dashed through the square, villagers screaming, running everywhere. She could see no one through the smoke, oily timber burning acrid fumes, stinging her eyes. She could only watch as embers leapt across the gap to the inn, the thatched roof igniting in an instant.
Everywhere, it spread. Small flames joining, growing, no longer isolated; no random incident, this. Someone had started the fire on purpose.
Someone with that kind of power.
Dimly, she spied a familiar face; magnetic, she ran to her teacher. "Zangan," she cried out. "What happened here? Where's my father?"
Zangan stared with pity at his faithful student. "It was Sephiroth," he told her. "Your father saw him when he started the fire. Flames everywhere, all at once, and then he turned, and laughed, and left. Your father ran after him."
No. Sephiroth. SOLDIER. Zack... had he gone mad, too?
"I'm going after him," Tifa announced, and was off as fast as long legs would carry her. Zangan knew he was no youth; he couldn't hope to catch her. All he could do was use his strength here, where he could do the most good…
Cissnei crept, Rekka at the ready. Sephiroth gone mad. She knew she was no match.
She could only her time… hiding. Waiting. Zack – he was the only chance.
She'd fled the destruction of the village with barely a call to Tseng, her superior horrified at the news. She tore up the trail Tifa had led the others only days before; monsters sliced and splattered left a bloody message that was all the confirmation she needed that Sephiroth had gone this way.
The reactor.
That was his goal.
What could he be looking for?
Did even Tseng know what secrets it held?
Cloud woke with the flickers of flame, survival instinct hijacking his senses, only thinking as he hit the bottom of the stairs and ran for the door Zack, why didn't he wake up Zack….
He burst outside, seeing the bases of houses already aflame, wooden structures easy tinder for the blaze that surrounded him, anywhere and everywhere at once. Looking to his childhood home, he saw it and Tifa's house beside it both nearly consumed, eaten through the walls, to the foundations. Had that been where the fire's start had been?
He stood between the two, torn. Mom. Tifa. A rafter of the roof came crashing through Claudia's home – his home – falling to where her bed lay, and Cloud's choice was made.
Recklessly he ran inside, dodging flames as he could, calling for his mother. The smoke, thickening, he unable to find his way. He coughed harshly, head spinning vertiguous, and he realized there was no air left to breathe.
The weight of the truth crashed in on him. It was already too late.
His mother was gone.
Hustling back to the heat outside, it feeling near-chill after the hellish interior, he gasped lungfuls of smoldering oxygen, lungs burning in protest. Tifa – could he save her at least? He stumbled to the house next door, feeling himself crashing to the ground as darkness closed its curtains over him.
His last thoughts were his dearest wish that he could be that SOLDIER to save her.
Tifa… I promised…
Tseng hung up the phone, cool exterior neatly covering up the trickle of panic within. A trickle that was fast becoming a river.
Sephiroth, gone mad?
He'd need to get to Nibelheim ASAP. With all the backup he could find. Too slow to call in SOLDIER. Quick, efficient telephone calls requesting helicopters, operatives. At the last, he got a call that Professor Hojo would be accompanying them. What interest could the scientist possibly have in this disaster?
Then again, Sephiroth was his creation. Hojo would examine the destruction as avidly as he'd charted the general's progress.
One last call. The one he needed most to make. He was expecting just to leave a message, but to his surprise, after months of silence, the line picked up on the first ring. As if he'd been expected.
"Commander Verdot," Tseng began. "We have a situation…"
Zack had nodded off to sleep, fading into dreams of Aerith, when finely honed instincts jolted him awake. Turning, he saw the other bed empty. Cloud? Where had he gone?
A flicker from the window, and as he turned, the full brunt of the horror greeted him.
SOLDIER adrenaline kicking in, he grabbed his sword, rushing out the door to the inferno. He looked back up to see the timbers of the inn starting to alight, inching towards the room where he had lately been sleeping, slowing eating their way through this house to destroy it as all the others it soon would as well.
Chaos was everywhere, Nibelheim was a burning nightmare. And in the middle…
Zack turned to see Sephiroth, crazed furor in his eyes, rabid, flames brushing him untouched.
The words unspoken caressed his mind.
I'm coming to get you…
Bodies, crumpled everywhere. Dimly in the flames, a single man, alive, moving, himself leaning over one of the immobile victims. He leaped a flaming log to join him; an instant later recognition hit. Zangan, the man Tifa had pointed out as her teacher, his muscles straining with the dead weight of the man he was trying to pull to safety.
"SOLDIER," the other man shouted. "Are you still sane?"
"You mean, not like Sephiroth?" Zack yelled back. Solid resolve steeled under tensed muscles, body tightened like a spring, coiled and ready to snap. "Yeah, I'm sane."
Zangan let the body he was holding slide away, now obvious it was too late, the victim charred and choked by flames and soot. "Tifa," he hollered. "Her father ran up that mountain! She followed!"
Tifa. Had Cloud run after her? Had Zack been too late? Nibelheim, burning all around, a heartbreaking catalog of broken feelings and near misses…
Up the mountain. To Sephiroth… "They won't stand a chance!" Zack shouted.
Zangan met his eyes, grim and solid. "I'd kill him myself if I could, but I'm a just an old man who knows some of how to fight. This calls for SOLDIER skills, a man's courage."
Zack nodded in consent. What had happened to Sephiroth, that week he was in the mansion? What had he discovered to turn and twist him this way? Had he turned mad, even more than Angeal, Genesis, even?
Had Sephiroth lost his last connections to humanity?
He reached for the ice materia embedded in his wristband. His hand paused; too late for that, he realized, heart sinking. Sephiroth must have started fires everywhere at once, an inferno beyond the capability of simple magic to help. There was nothing he could do here. Do what you can. First things first. You're only a man.
No, not just a man. I'm Zack Fair, SOLDIER First Class. And even if Sephiroth has abandoned it, I still have honor.
Find Tifa.
"I'll go after her," he called to Zangan, and the man motioned him to go.
Tifa, don't get yourself killed…
The words echoed, over and over.
I'm coming for you…
Sephiroth, why?
Tifa's father, crumpled in front of the reactor, Masumune a spike driven right through. Cissnei's heart went out to Tifa. What did the man think he could have done, anyway? All he could do was die…
The heat radiated up the mountain, scorching air mingling with warm Mako winds from the reactor. The flames that had been starting would have overtaken the village by now, and she was powerless to help.
Maybe they ALL would die today.
She followed Sephiroth into the reactor, but as quiet as she was, he sensed her nonetheless. The general turned to face her, raw malice in his eyes.
A thunder clap, and Cissnei knew that she was hit. Immobilized. The floor cracked and heaved below her. She tensed, waiting for Sephiroth's finishing blow, but he only laughed, scornful, turning away.
As her limbs loosened, she crept into the shadows, waiting, hoping.
Her head swam. She fought the fading light…
Through the haze, Cloud heard like lucid water a voice he vaguely recognized. Zack.
"- okay?" the voice asked.
Cloud, thoughts heavy with smoke and flame, could only mumble one word. Sephiroth. He'd seen the apparition in the flames before he passed out, a shadow self of the great SOLDIER, and he just KNEW.
"I know, buddy. Hang tight," he heard, this time clear.
Weather-spotted, muscled arms of an older man were pulling him to his feet. Cloud shook his head, clearing the fog of splintered thoughts, but though he might have hoped and wished, the disaster of Nibelheim was still all around him.
Tifa, he moaned.
"She's safe, but only for the moment. She ran after Sephiroth. Boy, can you stand?" A gruff voice. Not Zack. Where had Zack gone?
Suddenly, it was as if a light spiked through him. Tifa. There was still a chance… and heart pounding, he thought he could take on an army all his own. His vision swam and cleared, he was abruptly raised back to life.
The old man's features resolved before him. "Go," he ordered. "I'll take care of whatever can be saved here."
Cloud nodded, frenzied thoughts of Tifa in danger overtaking his mind. The promise he had made her. A hero who would come to save her. But now, nothing in him thought of being a hero. He only thought of her.
Tifa, please, I'm coming…
Her father cut down before the reactor, pinned to the ground like an insect with Sephiroth's blade.
Tifa desperately checked for a pulse, wishing for those last few moments to say goodbye. What was the last thing she had said to him that day? She couldn't remember, and now… he was already gone. Her only consolation was, his death looked to have been quick, a clean drive through the heart, although she doubted that was anything of mercy.
Later was the time to cry. For now, rage drove her on, she letting go of all the restraint that Zangan had taught her, unleashing darkest impulses inside as she pulled the sword from her father's corpse and ran into the wide-open doors of the reactor.
Sephiroth, at the top of the stairs. Reckless, wrath-blinded, she ran to him, his own blade flashing in reflected green light of mako pools below.
The monster turned, and with easy contempt, grabbed the hilt, hands opposite hers, lifting she and the sword together. He viewed her with belittling contempt, she hanging in the air before him.
Defiant, she stared back into his eyes, meeting him hate for hate.
A flick of his wrist, and she had only a moment to realize she'd been cut, and she was falling, tumbling, backwards down the stairs, head slamming her metal floor as she rolled to a stop, cold fissures of metal reaching up to grab her.
Brian Lockhart, dead.
Tifa, bloody but breathing.
Cut badly but alive, still alive… at least he was on time for one of them –
Sephiroth… she's just a girl….
Zack placed a hand hesitantly on her shoulder, but she only shrank away; despite her injuries, she curled into a ball, refusing to look him in the face.
"I hate you, I hate Shinra, I hate SOLDIER!" she madly sobbed. "I hate you all!"
It was a punch to the gut. Her hate was nothing but deserved. Monsters, that's all SOLDIER is.
Monsters…
Monsters have to die.
Dreams and honor carried him. He was still a man. It drove him up the stairs, and with one grand blow of the Buster Sword, he smashed through the sealed door…
Tifa's stomach cramped from her outburst. Her head rang from the impact. Consciousness was thin; she felt herself fading away.
Soldiers aren't heroes after all.
Now, she was glad that Cloud wasn't one of them.
But as thought slipped into dream, her mind cried out, reaching, reaching…
Cloud, where are you when I've never needed you more?
The words in her mind drifted away with the ashes of the town below.
He had no weapon, no plan. No idea what he was going to do.
But as if Tifa's need pulled him, Cloud had torn up the mountain with superhuman speed, focused, firm on his objective.
Tifa.
Tifa was up there.
Tifa was in danger…
He had barely registered Brian Lockhart's corpse, a bare moment of regret for the man who had been Tifa's father. Brian Lockhart – dead. The man had never had much love for Cloud, but he'd been Tifa's father. Both of them, orphaned on the same day. His mother, lost to the fire. His heart flew out in sympathy and understanding.
There was nothing he could do for Brian. All he could think was Tifa, Tifa…
A familiar voice. Hey… hang in there…
Through the haze, she squeaked out one small word. "Cloud?" She tried to move. "Where's Zack?" she asked, worried.
"Cissnei. You're alive." She heard a soft exhale of relief. "Just wait a moment. I need to check on Tifa."
She lifted her head, vaguely seeing Cloud leaning over Tifa. When had the girl arrived? When had she been taken down? How long had she been out, Cissnei wondered, and what had she missed?
Cloud leaned over Tifa, whispering to her softly. The telltale razor-thin slice of the Masamune; little blood, just enough to see the line, Tifa sliced down the middle like a pig gutted.
Clashes of metal spoke of combat below; Cissnei felt the charge of materia use in the air, crackling in resonance with the wellspring of mako that formed the core of the reactor.
Groaning, she rose to all fours, and vomited profusely. Trying to force herself to her feet, she saw Cloud turn and leave.
She couldn't fight… but she could try to get to Tifa.
Cloud... you can't beat Sephiroth. Come back…
- and now, there she was, crumpled on unwelcoming metal.
Cloud glanced below, where the clashing of metal echoed. Zack. It must be. The only man who could defeat Sephiroth now; what chance did he, a mere trooper, have against a SOLDIER First?
He gently scooped up Tifa's limpid form, careful of her injuries so not to wound her further. She was sliced clean but it looked deep, dangerous, a red line between death and life. He wanted a soft bed to lay her down, but the best he could do was carry her off to the side, arranging her as best he could.
Her head lolled to the side, and her mouth opened. Only one word came out. "Cloud…."
"I'm here, Tifa," he whispered softly; but she was somewhere far away.
He shrank back as the form of Sephiroth reentered, just in time to see Zack flung down the stairs. He heard the clatter of the Buster Sword, pinned to the floor above; and Sephiroth turned back to the chamber within.
Zack cringed prone on the stairs, moaning softly.
"Zack? You too?" Cloud gasped, leaning over his friend. "How?"
Zack raised his head with obvious pain and forced out the word Cloud dreaded to hear. Sephiroth. Sephiroth did this too. The village wasn't enough, cruelty thirsting for more.
Their eyes met, an exchange of understanding.
Cloud's eyes grew fierce, burning bright.
Almost a mako glow. No, not mako. With a start, Zack realized what he was reminded of.
Aerith…
…would he ever see her again?
He slumped, body weakening, even his SOLDIER strength depleted. Cloud rose. Zack hoped…
Sephiroth stood before a capsule, crowned with a metal-worked angelic head. With a heave, Sephiroth pulled off the mask – and Cloud was horrified at what he saw within.
A monster…
There were no words for the armless torso suspended in fluid, humanoid head bolted to a mechanism, tubes feeding it energy within.
Jenova.
That was what the name meant.
This thing…
The Buster Sword, speared into the floor, Quietly, Cloud grasped the handle, easing the point out. Heightened emotions drove his strength as he lifted it easily over his head –
- and he charged.
As Sephiroth reached for the glass –
- the sword slid through his body, splintering the tube on impact, cracks radiating out.
Sephiroth crumbled, and Cloud slid the Buster Sword out from the man's body. Unbloodied, he noted with surprise. How could that be? Tifa. He left the silver general downed by his injuries, and fled his attention to Tifa.
Her breathing slow, labored, Cloud wondering how much time she had to get help. He gently scooped her into his arms, the first time he'd touched her this way - wondering if this would be his only chance, caressing the side of her face with every tenderness he'd ever harbored for her.
Tifa, why couldn't I take off that mask? Why was I so embarrassed to talk to you? Please, just open your eyes. Don't let me lose you now. Don't let me miss another chance to tell you I love you…
The second time he'd seen her like this, but there was no father to come save her now, yell at Cloud for putting her in danger… he was empty meat outside, lying in dribbles of his own blood.
Sephiroth, trampled but yet undefeated, hobbled out of the chamber; Masumune in left hand, the other holding – the decapitated head of that thing he had called Mother.
Zack lifted his head, livid with pain. Sephiroth, as inhuman as Jenova itself. "How dare you," he hissed, and Cloud looked up.
A rabid dog, needing to be put down.
That was all Sephiroth was, now.
Zack had only one hope left….
"Cloud…" he half-moaned, strength draining by the second. "Finish him off…"
Cloud let one last look linger on Tifa's beautiful scratched face. Tifa, I have to do this, if any of us are going to make it out of this nightmare alive. He lowered Tifa down with the greatest of care, rising, reaching down, he grasped Zack's sword.
This was not about being a hero. Not something belonging SOLDIER. There was only one thing that meant anything now… being a man. A man who had made a promise - a promise he meant to keep.
No matter what it cost him.
"SEPHIROTH!" he cried, and he charged.
The Buster Sword braced against the Masamune, every fiber of Cloud's being pushing backwards against Sephiroth. In the smallest of universes, there was nothing but him and his foe. Strength flooded him, and for the briefest of moments, staring at Sephiroth in absolute defiance, he knew they were equals.
With a heave, Sephiroth sent Cloud flying, the sword clattering uselessly away once again. Honor. Zack had said that was the meaning of the sword. Cloud cringed, curling fetal in pain. Contemptuous, Sephiroth limped to his opponent; grasping the Masamune, with a sharp drive he impaled Cloud through the chest, lifting him into the air.
For Tifa…
Power from a distance to far to imagine, pain a distant loss. Instinct drove his hands as he grasped the Masamune's blade, lifting, levering, raising Sephiroth into the air as he sunk down, the blade through his chest a handle, a tool.
"Impossible," Sephiroth hissed. "Those eyes…"
Sliding the sword out of his own chest, with a final swing he flung Sephiroth bodily against the wall, the SOLDIER bouncing forward, rolling, tumbling, spilling, sword and all, into the mako below.
Cloud spared only a moment to look in the torrent of green, the last home of the SOLDIER, first among firsts.
His stomach panged, all the cries of the wound making itself known. Cloud's hand went to his chest. The sword had missed vital organs, but he was still weakening fast, last reserves of strength fading with the danger gone.
Zack raised his head, eyes giving a silent salute, and Cloud tumbled, clunking headfirst down the stairs to rest at Zack's side.
As Cloud let himself fall into darkened dreams, he heard the last traces of Zack's voice.
"Cloud… you did it…"
The fire was fading; there was nothing left to burn. Rare survivors, moaning, and Zangan helpless to save any one, beyond the help of his small Cure materia.
Something brushed against his legs, and he looked down to see Tifa's cat. He made to shove it away, but it pushed back, yowling a pitch he'd never heard out of its mouth. It ran several yards, then turned to look back at Zangan, never ceasing its high-pitched wail
Does it want me to follow? Zangan cast a last look across the village. There was nothing more he could do here…
The cat scampered forward, and he followed it up the mountain.
Cissnei crawled first, then hobbled to her feet. Zack and Cloud unconscious on the stairs; but Sephiroth was done, finished. She'd heard the last moments of his demise, felt the shockwaves as he brokenly plummeted into the mako below.
But what lives had it cost?
Knees like jelly, she wobbled over to Tifa. Tifa's head fell, but there was the barest hint of registering Cissnei's presence.
"Tifa," she said. "It was Cloud. He came to save you." The promise. Had it driven Cloud all the way here? Had it given him the strength to slay Sephiroth, the most powerful man in the world?
Future SOLDIER Cloud….
…you didn't even need to be SOLDIER, did you?
A puzzle, for now, filed in the back of her mind.
An incongruous meow interrupted her thoughts, and to her surprise, a white cat scampered in. Tifa's pet?
And just behind, a man she hadn't seen before, spry motion and muscle defying years that showed in salt-and-pepper hair. He leaned over Tifa, ignoring Cissnei's presence. "Tifa," he gasped. "What happened? Are you alright?"
"She needs help," Cissnei told him. "As soon as possible. That's from Sephiroth's blade."
He scooped her up with fatherly tenderness; Cissnei thought of Brian Lockhart's corpse, laid out bare outside. "Who are you, anyway?"
"I'm Zangan," he said, distracted, as he carefully examined Tifa's wounds. One finger lingered on the blood now dripping from her scalp. "I'm her teacher."
"How did you know to find her?"
"The cat." Zangan ripped a strip from his shirt, tying it around Tifa's stomach, a makeshift bandage. "It led me to her."
"Amazing," Cissnei told him. She worried. "Shinra will be here soon," she told Zangan.
The man looked at Zack and Cloud, still out cold. "I can't save them all," he said, with regret. "I can only hope to get Tifa out."
"Do that while you can," Cissnei warned him. She coughed. "I have to wait here."
Her torso now bandaged tight, Zangan easily lifted Tifa's slight form over his shoulders. He looked back at Zack and Cloud. "Save them if you can," he told Cissnei; she nodded. "They were heroes today."
She didn't know how many hours passed. Cissnei stood watch, vigilant. Zack... Cloud… Sephiroth was finished, but that both barely lingered on. She prayed Shinra would come in time.
The whir of the helicopter outside brought desperate reprieve, and she braced to avoid rushing out, patiently keeping watch over her charges. She sighed in her relief as her superior walked through the door, calling Tseng over, followed by a plummet of her stomach as she saw who followed him in…
Professor Hojo.
Hojo brushed her away, a minor nuisance, leaving her standing idly to the side next to Tseng.
"What's HE doing here?" she hissed.
"He insisted on coming along," Tseng muttered, obviously none too pleased himself.
"I don't like this," she told him.
Tseng's nod spoke volumes or another man's words. Neither do I.
Tseng could barely conceal his discomfort as the professor looked over Zack and Cloud, indifferent, objectifying. As if he didn't see them as people at all. Zack half-groaned, eyelid's fluttering open, but Cloud was out cold; Hojo paused by the younger man, speculating, visible his unnerving, profound interest.
"Sir," Cissnei whispered urgently. "He's the one who killed Sephiroth."
Cloud? But he was just a trooper. How did he take out the most powerful weapon in the world? True, the young man had made an impression… but what kind of power did he really have?
"Go," he ordered Cissnei. "Join the others and see to the survivors in the village."
Cissnei nodded, reluctant, no choice but to leave.
"Are you sure this isn't going too far, Professor?" The whole affair was leaving a foul taste in Tseng's mouth. He owed it to Aerith to bring Zack back. For her, and… and…
Secrets he kept so deep, he couldn't say it even in his own mind.
"They will surely die without help," Hojo answered. "Don't you think they would be grateful?"
Tseng felt sick, knowing he'd come to regret his complicity, but felt powerless to intervene. Aerith, please forgive me. There is nothing I can do now. Ordered to help get the manor ready, the site of so much questionable activity before, he dreaded what Hojo might have in mind…
Cissnei surveyed the charred wreckage of the village. Burned to the ground. Bodies lying right in the open, nowhere to flee. She and her colleagues were charged with finding the survivors, however few there might remain.
How would Shinra cover up THIS?
Somehow, she knew they would find a way.
Zack… Cloud…
She was helpless. Just another cog in Shinra's machine, executing the will of her superiors. But if only there was…
And like an apparition, she saw the one man who could help, approaching. "Commander Verdot!" she cried out. If anyone could fix this mess, he could.
Tseng arrived minutes later, pleased and relieved to see their top-ranking officer. Verdot's face was heavy, lines prominent, showing his wear and age. Tseng wondered if that was where he was headed as well. Sharp, imposing, he gave the order. Survivors to be collected as per Hojo's request. Taken to the Mansion.
Couldn't Verdot put a stop to this? Tseng knew too well the story of Kalm, ten years before, he still rising through the ranks. The survivors from there had been taken to the mansion too…
And that was the last Tseng had ever heard of them.
Surely Verdot wouldn't allow such a thing to happen again?
He was trained to obey authority, but this time, Tseng couldn't restrain himself. "But why, sir?"
"It's none of our business. It's our job." Verdot was firm.
Tseng thought of Aerith. Thought of the other Turks. Thought of who, and what he was. And for the first time ever, he openly defied his orders.
"This work is too dirty," he said."I don't want any part of it. I don't want my subordinates to have any part of it either."
Too dirty for a Turk.
Verdot looked at him, long and silent. Tseng shrank under the gaze. Finally, Verdot spoke. "All right, then." He sighed. "I suppose this is my penance. None of you have to take part in this. I'll handle it myself. Now, go."
Cissnei watched with horror as Zack and Cloud, both fully unconscious, were transported by Hojo's staff into the mansion. What had she condemned them to? Could she have done anything better?
She knew that question would haunt her forever.
Zack… never to know that on another continent, a new life that was part of him was waiting to be born.
Cloud… so dedicated, so driven. So YOUNG. Would he never have a chance to realize his dreams?
She felt sick; bile gurgled in her throat. Had there been anything left in her stomach, she would have purged it right then and there. Tseng put one hand on her back, gesturing to the helicopter; and helpless and defeated, she turned.
Before she walked away, she saw a small flash of white fur; the head of a white cat peeked around the building. She sent a silent message to it. Go, little kitty, before Hojo finds you. Who knows what he might do to you.
Tifa, she reminded herself. At least one life saved, to live on free of Shinra's clutches. She was effectively disappeared. There was no one to know the truth.
That much, Cissnei swore she would never tell. Perhaps, in some way, it would help to redeem all she couldn't do here today.
Zack… Cloud… I'm so sorry…
From the mountain pass, Zangan looked down at the Shinra swarm below. The cleanup operation was beginning, Shinra's filthy hands readying to cover up their mistakes. He saw the survivors, the wounded, rounded up and carried away.
And in the center of it, Hojo.
He only knew Hojo by reputation – but that was more than enough. Hojo's presence here meant no good for those who remained. He was grateful Tifa wouldn't be one of them.
The cure spells he used were only maintaining her; if it hadn't been for her past year of training, strengthening, she would have been lost already. His only hope was to make it over the mountain to Rocket Town. Only the dead crossed the mountain. The villagers had believed that. He had every intention of defying that belief.
From there, he could catch a flight to Midgar. He hoped there he'd find help for Tifa – the only chance he had to save her. They had the mako, the materia. If she couldn't be healed there…
No. he wouldn't even entertain that thought.
And then he'd have to tell her… she'd never be going home again.