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ff7 - Restore - chapter 6.2
This is the part where I'm all "waugh Tifa stop inner-monologuing already" but I don't know if I can cut off much from it, because it's all relatively important. Still, trimming it down might make for easier reading. Then again maybe I only think it's too much because i've been reading and reading it over for weeks and months now, and it wouldn't bother anyone reading it for the first time, I have no clue.
Table of Contents - Previous
Zack had been right after all; she was a bad mother.
Not that he'd actually said so. But he'd kind of implied it, hadn't he? With that surprised look, and...
Or maybe he hadn't implied it at all and she was the one who had inferred too much. Except it wasn't too much at all, now was it? Maybe she'd pretended Zack was the one who had the thought because some part of her had known better and she hadn't wanted to hear it.
Denzel was so mature most of the time, so wary, so street-savvy. He had this way of looking at people and guessing which ones were going to be trouble, which ones were unsafe to be around. Oh, not always -- he liked Reno of all people, proof that his bad guys radar had a few glitches. But he was just... he...
She'd forgotten he was a teenager, and a young one at that. He was impulsive, and that was because he wasn't yet old enough to know how to restrain himself in all occasions. It was her job to watch out for that -- to trust him to try his best, yes, but to be there to catch him anyway, just in case.
Instead she'd up and left the continent.
She couldn't get over it.
"Hey, Tifa."
Cid fell into step with her. She grimaced, then tried to hide it; but seeing the way his eyes narrowed, she could tell he had noticed. At the head of the group Cloud walked with the old councilor's aide, Leuang; Barret and Nanaki bracketed Denzel. (Vincent of course was nowhere to be seen.) She'd been walking at the back, to avoid having to talk to anyone, but it meant if she tried to avoid Cid it would be much too obvious. And Cid wasn't Nanaki, who would see her avoidance but politely let her get away with it, or Barret who wouldn't even notice.
"Yes?"
Cid's voice was quiet, so the others wouldn't hear, but that was as tactful as he went. "Wanna explain why the kid assumed you'd kicked the bucket?"
Because Sephiroth was here and it was a reasonable assumption to make. She crossed her arms tight, hiding her hands far up her wide sleeves, stared ahead. "Not really, no."
Denzel didn't know about Sephiroth, but he'd known enough to assume danger, assume foul play. How it must have scared him to suddenly have no more news...
She should never have left him. Yuffie might not have understood, not right away, but...
Yuffie was the baby of the group, the little sister. They were responsible for her in a way... Except they weren't, Yuffie was brave and headstrong and she always landed back on her feet somehow. She was almost twenty-one and an adult. Yuffie wasn't Tifa's little sister, she was everyone's, and there were always others to care for her. Denzel was her son, and he had no one else.
Yuffie needed moral support. Denzel needed someone to keep him from getting slaughtered by Sephiroth. What had she been thinking?
"Tifa. Oi."
She closed her eyes briefly, aware that her hands were shaking. She still couldn't look at Cid straight on, at his piercing, suspicious squint. "Sorry. I can't tell you."
"Trouble back home, huh?"
She glanced his way, quick, surprised.
Tifa didn't know how Cid managed to make a perfectly good funeral kimono look so disreputable; even with Reeve around to make sure it hung properly, he looked more like a bandit from an old samurai movie than a well-dressed gentleman, and it wasn't only the blond hair and scruffy chin. The way he kept pushing his sleeves up to his elbows didn't help. He was chewing on a toothpick, Reeve having politely forbidden him to pull out his cigarettes earlier as they left the building.
"Vince told me."
"Oh." A sigh. "I can't tell you, you'll have to wait." Her fingers crawled higher up her sleeves, clenching on her upper arms too tightly.
"It's bad, huh?"
Tifa hesitated. She didn't want to scare him, but someone needed to know. "Yes. Not --"
She bit her lip, sneaked a glance at Cloud, who'd convinced her it would be alright to come here, that there would be no incidents. She had deferred to his judgment, but...
"--Not immediate. It can probably wait," she allowed, knowing she didn't sound convinced enough and unable to fake it. "Yuffie -- Yuffie comes first." Now that they were all there, at least, now that Denzel was safe.
"Huh." Cid's toothpick moved from one corner of his mouth to the other as he thought. "A hint?"
She shook her head. "I'm sorry."
Cid let out a short sigh and adjusted his kimono where it gaped open on his chest, tugged on the belt with irritation. It was black, like her wide obi and her kimono's under-layer, because as friends instead of family it wasn't appropriate for them to wear nothing but mourning whites. Yuffie had been pristine all over, dark hair hidden behind a silver-embroidered headpiece, nails shining like snow and a dusting of moon-pale eye shadow making her face look fey, look not-Yuffie.
"Please stop fussing with your clothes," Reeve commented as he appeared beside them, making Tifa jump. She hadn't seen him coming. "You'll scandalize a lot of grandmothers if you let your top gape so much, Cid."
Reeve nodded politely at the other group he'd just left -- business-suit-wearing, all of them, likely diplomatic envoys from other continents -- and turned back to Cid and Tifa. Cid was rolling his eyes, muttering under his breath, but he tucked his thumb in his belt and stopped trying to rearrange his kimono. "Yeah, yeah, Mom."
Reeve chuckled but declined to respond, leaning forward to take part in Barret and Denzel's conversation. Tifa let her gaze drop to the paved street.
The wake had been awful. A beautifully sterile, oppressive room, no voice higher than a whisper, the depressing notes of a strange little guitar. Animated, spitfire Yuffie sat on a dais like a statue, like a porcelain doll, the kind you never touched because you'd just get them dirty and they weren't for playing with anyway. Tifa almost hadn't recognized her there, expression cold and dead, staring ahead at nothing in particular. Surrounded as she was by grim-faced guards, Cloud and Tifa hadn't been allowed to move close or say a word to her. They'd just sat all night watching the corpse, not even sure Yuffie had noticed them.
Denzel's voice caught her attention; she shook her head, tried to banish her thoughts.
"...died just yesterday, right? Isn't that kind of quick?"
"Eh," Barret said. "Between the time they found him and the doctor said he was dead, and the time differences, it's probably closer to three days..." He scratched his hair. "Two and a half?"
"No, Denzel is right," Reeve said. "The local religion believes that the soul is tethered to the body until it's done, ah, returning to dust."
Nanaki tilted his head, curious. "You mean rotting?"
Tifa couldn't help but grimace.
"Hm, I can see why they would wish to do away with the ceremony fast, then. Decomposition does take a long time."
Reeve nodded almost ponderously, though his eyes sparkled in amusement behind his proper expression. "It's rather unsightly, as well. "
"But, if they bury him...?" Denzel looked a little disturbed now. "Wouldn't the soul be kinda... buried alive? That's -- I mean, it takes longer underground, doesn't it?"
Tifa didn't like thinking about the reason why Denzel even knew so much about decomposition.
Leuang threw Denzel an unreadable look over his shoulder, and he swept out his thin, long-fingered hand toward the town square just ahead. The square was filled with other mourners in drab colors. Even so, they could see a tall platform, and in front of it a great pile of dry wood.
"We do not bury our dead," he said, each word carefully weighed and enunciated. "We cremate them. Shall I explain what cremation is?"
"No, I know that," Denzel replied, expression going shuttered as if Leuang had ended that sentence with a 'you ignorant child'. "Thanks."
Tifa hesitated, hand lifted to rest it on his shoulder. She hadn't heard it like that, more in a 'I am unsure how to make something I've always known clear to you' way. Denzel didn't react well to being thought stupid or uncultured -- he'd lost two years' worth of school teaching after Meteor and she knew being inferior to his peers bothered him, even though several of his classmates were in the same boat.
But he'd been polite. She didn't want to correct him on what she assumed he thought, instead of what he acted on. She dropped her hand again without him noticing.
She'd have more serious things to correct him about afterwards. He was right though, she had failed to uphold her responsibilities more than he had his, but that didn't mean that, as his parent, she didn't have to punish him. It was going to be unpleasant.
She pulled herself out of her thoughts as they reached the square. The crowd parted before them. They did attract some suspicious looks, but most people just looked toward the waiting pyre, heartbreak and worry clear in their eyes. "Friggin' depressing," muttered Barret. Tifa nodded.
Leuang led them at a spot off to the side, where they would be close to the pyre and Yuffie's dais without being right at the front of the crowd, and then he left with a little bow, without saying another word. Tifa barely noticed, watching instead as the crowd parted again and fell to their knees to bow low to the ground.
"It's alright," said Reeve quietly. "We weren't his vassals. We're not expected to bow."
They watched as eight men carried the body on a litter on their shoulders, as they climbed a few stairs and deposited it on top of the pyre. Yuffie came next, trailing too many layers of cloth behind her on the paved ground, flanked by bodyguards and attendants.
Cloud stepped beside her, arched a questioning eyebrow. She shook her head and leaned her shoulder against his, just a bit.
Tifa didn't want to think of anything but Yuffie at this instant, climbing the platform to be of height with her father's body on the pyre, but the silver-threaded white ribbons on her headpiece, despite not looking like hair much, still managed to remind her of Sephiroth.
Sephiroth in her attic. A part of her was horrified, just with the name, the weight of their history, wanted nothing but to attack. Another part... she couldn't wrap her mind around the man as he had appeared in her bar -- dusty, hair tied back on his nape in a rough knot, irritated and making reluctant concessions -- temporarily neutered -- and so she floundered, because she didn't have the first clue what to think.
And so she had tried not to.
She wanted this week to be over already. She lifted her chin and stared at Yuffie.
There was no speech, no last word, last blessing. Yuffie stared down at her father's face for a second -- he looked so much more like a nobleman like this, neat and expressionless, than he had when they met him, cynical and weary, worried for his child but too emotionally clumsy to know how to let her see.
Yuffie took a burning torch from an assistant's hands and thrust it into the pile of wood.
They watched the body burn.
There must have been some Fire materia in there, Tifa thought vaguely, to speed up the process, because the fire burned hot and fast, until the body was hidden behind hazy blue flames. Even from their spot a dozen yards away she could still feel the sweltering heat. She didn't know how Yuffie could stand it without fainting, even closer on her platform.
It must have been a hour later, or perhaps more, when the pile of wood was just ashes and a couple of charred trunks, that an attendant waved the smoke away and Yuffie said, blunt and to the point, "Godo Kisaragi is dead."
That was when the arrows started raining.
Struck stupid by surprise, muscles aching after so long spent standing motionless, Tifa needed a couple of seconds to realize, to recognize the threat. She saw a swirl of red, Vincent leaping into the fray, catching arrows with his cape, attendants fighting to shield Yuffie with their bodies.
Tifa caught Denzel by the shoulders and thrust him at Reeve, then yanked open the bottom of her kimono and started running. Reeve was a non-combatant; he'd get Denzel out.
Nanaki and Cloud were already racing through the square toward the points of origin of the arrows, Cid following on their heels with gritted teeth. Tifa saw another flurry of bolts fly, jumped forward and snatched a couple out of the air; they wouldn't have gotten anywhere close to Yuffie but there was still the crowd standing there. "Run!" she yelled at them; they were in range and didn't even seem to notice, in shock, only a few already screaming.
Vincent perched on the edge of the platform but wide as his cape was, it was frayed, weighted down by the arrows, and he couldn't block from all angles. There were people trying to drag Yuffie down to shelter; Tifa yelled a protest when Yuffie resisted them, tugging her arm free.
None of the arrows would have touched Yuffie in her usual garb, quick as she was, but she was wrapped in too many layers to dodge anything. Tifa leapt over the still-smoking pyre, feeling heat rush across her bare legs. One attendant -- bodyguard maybe -- saw her coming but she didn't have the time to tell him she wasn't an enemy; she dodged, planted her foot on a wooden beam, used her momentum to fling herself up. She swatted another arrow down before she'd even really landed on the platform.
"Yuffie!" she yelled, already moving to cover a hole in her defenses that Vincent and her ninjas couldn't get to. "Yuffie, get down from there--"
It was all rushing by so fast, so fast, but she could see Yuffie's face, alive again with some strange, powerful emotion Tifa didn't have any time to name, because at her right hand was a scared-looking attendant, and between his fingers gleamed a thin needle aimed right at Yuffie's unprotected neck.
Tifa's fist caught him in the ribs like a hammer blow, flung him straight off the platform. Tifa came to a stop a step past Yuffie's side, glanced back to look at her. No blood, no prickle on her skin.
"Oh, good," Tifa said when Yuffie stared at her, and smiled at the girl, and her forearm started burning.
She blinked and then she was on her knees, leaning heavily on the arm Yuffie had wrapped around her ribs, Yuffie who leaned over her, still standing. She tried to tug on a long white sleeve to get her down but her fingers wouldn't close properly.
She blinked up and Yuffie was still staring at her through a haze of ... smoke maybe. One of the ninjas was saying something about poison but she couldn't catch much more. She closed her eyes again.
No, no, Yuffie wasn't safe, Yuffie wasn't...
She fought to turn her head. Yuffie was standing on the edge of the platform, and a red stone shone from her headdress, and water rushed across the courtyard before the dragon god.
Dark smoke filled Tifa's vision. She hoped vaguely that Reeve had taken Denzel far enough they wouldn't be bowled over by Leviathan's strike, and then the burn reached her shoulder and beyond and she was falling and falling forever.
Next.
Table of Contents - Previous
Zack had been right after all; she was a bad mother.
Not that he'd actually said so. But he'd kind of implied it, hadn't he? With that surprised look, and...
Or maybe he hadn't implied it at all and she was the one who had inferred too much. Except it wasn't too much at all, now was it? Maybe she'd pretended Zack was the one who had the thought because some part of her had known better and she hadn't wanted to hear it.
Denzel was so mature most of the time, so wary, so street-savvy. He had this way of looking at people and guessing which ones were going to be trouble, which ones were unsafe to be around. Oh, not always -- he liked Reno of all people, proof that his bad guys radar had a few glitches. But he was just... he...
She'd forgotten he was a teenager, and a young one at that. He was impulsive, and that was because he wasn't yet old enough to know how to restrain himself in all occasions. It was her job to watch out for that -- to trust him to try his best, yes, but to be there to catch him anyway, just in case.
Instead she'd up and left the continent.
She couldn't get over it.
"Hey, Tifa."
Cid fell into step with her. She grimaced, then tried to hide it; but seeing the way his eyes narrowed, she could tell he had noticed. At the head of the group Cloud walked with the old councilor's aide, Leuang; Barret and Nanaki bracketed Denzel. (Vincent of course was nowhere to be seen.) She'd been walking at the back, to avoid having to talk to anyone, but it meant if she tried to avoid Cid it would be much too obvious. And Cid wasn't Nanaki, who would see her avoidance but politely let her get away with it, or Barret who wouldn't even notice.
"Yes?"
Cid's voice was quiet, so the others wouldn't hear, but that was as tactful as he went. "Wanna explain why the kid assumed you'd kicked the bucket?"
Because Sephiroth was here and it was a reasonable assumption to make. She crossed her arms tight, hiding her hands far up her wide sleeves, stared ahead. "Not really, no."
Denzel didn't know about Sephiroth, but he'd known enough to assume danger, assume foul play. How it must have scared him to suddenly have no more news...
She should never have left him. Yuffie might not have understood, not right away, but...
Yuffie was the baby of the group, the little sister. They were responsible for her in a way... Except they weren't, Yuffie was brave and headstrong and she always landed back on her feet somehow. She was almost twenty-one and an adult. Yuffie wasn't Tifa's little sister, she was everyone's, and there were always others to care for her. Denzel was her son, and he had no one else.
Yuffie needed moral support. Denzel needed someone to keep him from getting slaughtered by Sephiroth. What had she been thinking?
"Tifa. Oi."
She closed her eyes briefly, aware that her hands were shaking. She still couldn't look at Cid straight on, at his piercing, suspicious squint. "Sorry. I can't tell you."
"Trouble back home, huh?"
She glanced his way, quick, surprised.
Tifa didn't know how Cid managed to make a perfectly good funeral kimono look so disreputable; even with Reeve around to make sure it hung properly, he looked more like a bandit from an old samurai movie than a well-dressed gentleman, and it wasn't only the blond hair and scruffy chin. The way he kept pushing his sleeves up to his elbows didn't help. He was chewing on a toothpick, Reeve having politely forbidden him to pull out his cigarettes earlier as they left the building.
"Vince told me."
"Oh." A sigh. "I can't tell you, you'll have to wait." Her fingers crawled higher up her sleeves, clenching on her upper arms too tightly.
"It's bad, huh?"
Tifa hesitated. She didn't want to scare him, but someone needed to know. "Yes. Not --"
She bit her lip, sneaked a glance at Cloud, who'd convinced her it would be alright to come here, that there would be no incidents. She had deferred to his judgment, but...
"--Not immediate. It can probably wait," she allowed, knowing she didn't sound convinced enough and unable to fake it. "Yuffie -- Yuffie comes first." Now that they were all there, at least, now that Denzel was safe.
"Huh." Cid's toothpick moved from one corner of his mouth to the other as he thought. "A hint?"
She shook her head. "I'm sorry."
Cid let out a short sigh and adjusted his kimono where it gaped open on his chest, tugged on the belt with irritation. It was black, like her wide obi and her kimono's under-layer, because as friends instead of family it wasn't appropriate for them to wear nothing but mourning whites. Yuffie had been pristine all over, dark hair hidden behind a silver-embroidered headpiece, nails shining like snow and a dusting of moon-pale eye shadow making her face look fey, look not-Yuffie.
"Please stop fussing with your clothes," Reeve commented as he appeared beside them, making Tifa jump. She hadn't seen him coming. "You'll scandalize a lot of grandmothers if you let your top gape so much, Cid."
Reeve nodded politely at the other group he'd just left -- business-suit-wearing, all of them, likely diplomatic envoys from other continents -- and turned back to Cid and Tifa. Cid was rolling his eyes, muttering under his breath, but he tucked his thumb in his belt and stopped trying to rearrange his kimono. "Yeah, yeah, Mom."
Reeve chuckled but declined to respond, leaning forward to take part in Barret and Denzel's conversation. Tifa let her gaze drop to the paved street.
The wake had been awful. A beautifully sterile, oppressive room, no voice higher than a whisper, the depressing notes of a strange little guitar. Animated, spitfire Yuffie sat on a dais like a statue, like a porcelain doll, the kind you never touched because you'd just get them dirty and they weren't for playing with anyway. Tifa almost hadn't recognized her there, expression cold and dead, staring ahead at nothing in particular. Surrounded as she was by grim-faced guards, Cloud and Tifa hadn't been allowed to move close or say a word to her. They'd just sat all night watching the corpse, not even sure Yuffie had noticed them.
Denzel's voice caught her attention; she shook her head, tried to banish her thoughts.
"...died just yesterday, right? Isn't that kind of quick?"
"Eh," Barret said. "Between the time they found him and the doctor said he was dead, and the time differences, it's probably closer to three days..." He scratched his hair. "Two and a half?"
"No, Denzel is right," Reeve said. "The local religion believes that the soul is tethered to the body until it's done, ah, returning to dust."
Nanaki tilted his head, curious. "You mean rotting?"
Tifa couldn't help but grimace.
"Hm, I can see why they would wish to do away with the ceremony fast, then. Decomposition does take a long time."
Reeve nodded almost ponderously, though his eyes sparkled in amusement behind his proper expression. "It's rather unsightly, as well. "
"But, if they bury him...?" Denzel looked a little disturbed now. "Wouldn't the soul be kinda... buried alive? That's -- I mean, it takes longer underground, doesn't it?"
Tifa didn't like thinking about the reason why Denzel even knew so much about decomposition.
Leuang threw Denzel an unreadable look over his shoulder, and he swept out his thin, long-fingered hand toward the town square just ahead. The square was filled with other mourners in drab colors. Even so, they could see a tall platform, and in front of it a great pile of dry wood.
"We do not bury our dead," he said, each word carefully weighed and enunciated. "We cremate them. Shall I explain what cremation is?"
"No, I know that," Denzel replied, expression going shuttered as if Leuang had ended that sentence with a 'you ignorant child'. "Thanks."
Tifa hesitated, hand lifted to rest it on his shoulder. She hadn't heard it like that, more in a 'I am unsure how to make something I've always known clear to you' way. Denzel didn't react well to being thought stupid or uncultured -- he'd lost two years' worth of school teaching after Meteor and she knew being inferior to his peers bothered him, even though several of his classmates were in the same boat.
But he'd been polite. She didn't want to correct him on what she assumed he thought, instead of what he acted on. She dropped her hand again without him noticing.
She'd have more serious things to correct him about afterwards. He was right though, she had failed to uphold her responsibilities more than he had his, but that didn't mean that, as his parent, she didn't have to punish him. It was going to be unpleasant.
She pulled herself out of her thoughts as they reached the square. The crowd parted before them. They did attract some suspicious looks, but most people just looked toward the waiting pyre, heartbreak and worry clear in their eyes. "Friggin' depressing," muttered Barret. Tifa nodded.
Leuang led them at a spot off to the side, where they would be close to the pyre and Yuffie's dais without being right at the front of the crowd, and then he left with a little bow, without saying another word. Tifa barely noticed, watching instead as the crowd parted again and fell to their knees to bow low to the ground.
"It's alright," said Reeve quietly. "We weren't his vassals. We're not expected to bow."
They watched as eight men carried the body on a litter on their shoulders, as they climbed a few stairs and deposited it on top of the pyre. Yuffie came next, trailing too many layers of cloth behind her on the paved ground, flanked by bodyguards and attendants.
Cloud stepped beside her, arched a questioning eyebrow. She shook her head and leaned her shoulder against his, just a bit.
Tifa didn't want to think of anything but Yuffie at this instant, climbing the platform to be of height with her father's body on the pyre, but the silver-threaded white ribbons on her headpiece, despite not looking like hair much, still managed to remind her of Sephiroth.
Sephiroth in her attic. A part of her was horrified, just with the name, the weight of their history, wanted nothing but to attack. Another part... she couldn't wrap her mind around the man as he had appeared in her bar -- dusty, hair tied back on his nape in a rough knot, irritated and making reluctant concessions -- temporarily neutered -- and so she floundered, because she didn't have the first clue what to think.
And so she had tried not to.
She wanted this week to be over already. She lifted her chin and stared at Yuffie.
There was no speech, no last word, last blessing. Yuffie stared down at her father's face for a second -- he looked so much more like a nobleman like this, neat and expressionless, than he had when they met him, cynical and weary, worried for his child but too emotionally clumsy to know how to let her see.
Yuffie took a burning torch from an assistant's hands and thrust it into the pile of wood.
They watched the body burn.
There must have been some Fire materia in there, Tifa thought vaguely, to speed up the process, because the fire burned hot and fast, until the body was hidden behind hazy blue flames. Even from their spot a dozen yards away she could still feel the sweltering heat. She didn't know how Yuffie could stand it without fainting, even closer on her platform.
It must have been a hour later, or perhaps more, when the pile of wood was just ashes and a couple of charred trunks, that an attendant waved the smoke away and Yuffie said, blunt and to the point, "Godo Kisaragi is dead."
That was when the arrows started raining.
Struck stupid by surprise, muscles aching after so long spent standing motionless, Tifa needed a couple of seconds to realize, to recognize the threat. She saw a swirl of red, Vincent leaping into the fray, catching arrows with his cape, attendants fighting to shield Yuffie with their bodies.
Tifa caught Denzel by the shoulders and thrust him at Reeve, then yanked open the bottom of her kimono and started running. Reeve was a non-combatant; he'd get Denzel out.
Nanaki and Cloud were already racing through the square toward the points of origin of the arrows, Cid following on their heels with gritted teeth. Tifa saw another flurry of bolts fly, jumped forward and snatched a couple out of the air; they wouldn't have gotten anywhere close to Yuffie but there was still the crowd standing there. "Run!" she yelled at them; they were in range and didn't even seem to notice, in shock, only a few already screaming.
Vincent perched on the edge of the platform but wide as his cape was, it was frayed, weighted down by the arrows, and he couldn't block from all angles. There were people trying to drag Yuffie down to shelter; Tifa yelled a protest when Yuffie resisted them, tugging her arm free.
None of the arrows would have touched Yuffie in her usual garb, quick as she was, but she was wrapped in too many layers to dodge anything. Tifa leapt over the still-smoking pyre, feeling heat rush across her bare legs. One attendant -- bodyguard maybe -- saw her coming but she didn't have the time to tell him she wasn't an enemy; she dodged, planted her foot on a wooden beam, used her momentum to fling herself up. She swatted another arrow down before she'd even really landed on the platform.
"Yuffie!" she yelled, already moving to cover a hole in her defenses that Vincent and her ninjas couldn't get to. "Yuffie, get down from there--"
It was all rushing by so fast, so fast, but she could see Yuffie's face, alive again with some strange, powerful emotion Tifa didn't have any time to name, because at her right hand was a scared-looking attendant, and between his fingers gleamed a thin needle aimed right at Yuffie's unprotected neck.
Tifa's fist caught him in the ribs like a hammer blow, flung him straight off the platform. Tifa came to a stop a step past Yuffie's side, glanced back to look at her. No blood, no prickle on her skin.
"Oh, good," Tifa said when Yuffie stared at her, and smiled at the girl, and her forearm started burning.
She blinked and then she was on her knees, leaning heavily on the arm Yuffie had wrapped around her ribs, Yuffie who leaned over her, still standing. She tried to tug on a long white sleeve to get her down but her fingers wouldn't close properly.
She blinked up and Yuffie was still staring at her through a haze of ... smoke maybe. One of the ninjas was saying something about poison but she couldn't catch much more. She closed her eyes again.
No, no, Yuffie wasn't safe, Yuffie wasn't...
She fought to turn her head. Yuffie was standing on the edge of the platform, and a red stone shone from her headdress, and water rushed across the courtyard before the dragon god.
Dark smoke filled Tifa's vision. She hoped vaguely that Reeve had taken Denzel far enough they wouldn't be bowled over by Leviathan's strike, and then the burn reached her shoulder and beyond and she was falling and falling forever.
Next.
no subject
Beautiful as always, Asuka.no subject
NEXT SCENE, SEPHIROTH MUAHAHA.
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Please update soon, yes? *cries*Re: Yay Leviathan!
So glad you're enjoying Tifa and Denzel. It was woe to write. XD;; i was all "no, get along! get along!" but, well.
Next chapter should have a scene from each location, so you'll likely see both groups. 'course, I want to milk it for a bit so I'm going with Seph first. u.u
Aw, were you in a bad/sad mood? nuuu. *petpetpets* ;_; sleep well, hon ^^
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Tifa's mopery wasn't too long, it was broken up enough by observations of what is going on around her and with talking to Cid.
That doesn't mean I don't want to punt her for being overly self-critical, but that's my character flaw, not your writing. XD
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XDDD Yeah, she does tend to mope and self-doubt and be indecisive often in the game. Sometimes she's AWESOME, and then sometimes she just... stalls and gets stuck on things. I'm so glad this particular bout is over. DX
part 1
Zack had been right after all; she was a bad mother.
Not that he'd actually said so. But he'd kind of implied it, hadn't he? With that surprised look, and...
On one hand, I want to shake Tifa. I don't care how young are the marriageable girls in Nibelheim, she's still very young to care for a boy like Denzel. It wouldn't be strange if Zack were surprised. On the other, I don't remember his looking surprised. .__. I went back to look for it, too, and didn't find it.
he liked Reno of all people, proof that his bad guys radar had a few glitches.
I'll never find this not funny. Street rats sticking together?
She'd forgotten he was a teenager, and a young one at that. He was impulsive, and that was because he wasn't yet old enough to know how to restrain himself in all occasions. It was her job to watch out for that -- to trust him to try his best, yes, but to be there to catch him anyway, just in case.
Oh, I love this paragraph. It's so beautiful.
Oooh, Cid! And Avalanche dynamics, how fun. ♥ And of course Cid is the one who pushes; he could pretty much be considered a 2IC and has the pushy personality besides, but it's also fun that he pushes Tifa instead of Cloud. I suppose he can't very well push Cloud when in front of Leuang, but there's also the implication that it would be harder to get Cloud to talk. Then again, Cloud would probably be more straightforward, and Avalanche does have this bad habit of kicking each other in the head when they think it's needed. ♥
Yuffie was the baby of the group, the little sister. They were responsible for her in a way... Except they weren't, Yuffie was brave and headstrong and she always landed back on her feet somehow. She was almost twenty-one and an adult. Yuffie wasn't Tifa's little sister, she was everyone's, and there were always others to care for her. Denzel was her son, and he had no one else.
;__; ♥♥♥♥♥
On one hand, yeah, Yuffie has always been pretty capable. On the other, I love how Avalanche... cares for each other. The realtionship they've got goes to the point of scary (and I adore it). They all dropped everything to go to Wutai when Yuffie needed them; just as they all eventually accept Cloud's decision despite the fact that he has a history of insanity and mental manipulation -- just like they kind of gave him a kick and got him back into the position of leader that time when he was having a mental breakdown over the fact that, you know, he'd been crazy...
Yuffie needed moral support. Denzel needed someone to keep him from getting slaughtered by Sephiroth. What had she been thinking?
Oh, Tifa. You weren't really thinking, but that is okay. You were under a lot of stress, and you hadn't slept well, and Cloud said it was okay, and you trust him, and people make mistakes. You don't need to beat yourself so much over it, I promise.
...Ahahahah, Cid the perpetually disreputable-looking man. You've got some nice imagery going on.
She bit her lip, sneaked a glance at Cloud, who'd convinced her it would be alright to come here, that there would be no incidents. She had deferred to his judgment, but...
...ouch. And yet, she does defer to his judgement, to the point of not telling, not even hinting to anybody else that, you know, that ridiculously dangerous mass murderer is back from the dead. ♥
Now that they were all there, at least, now that Denzel was safe.
I love how she doesn't really think of the rest of Edge. She'll feel terribly guilty if someone there does die, of course, but for now she just... doesn't think about it. Her people are safe, so that's what matters.
...Yuffie looking not-Yuffie. ;__;
Have I told you you've got some lovely imagery going on here?
part 2
She'd have more serious things to correct him about afterwards. He was right though, she had failed to uphold her responsibilities more than he had his, but that didn't mean that, as his parent, she didn't have to punish him. It was going to be unpleasant.
;___; It must be all the worse because Tifa is so passive. She's not the kind who enjoys or even is indifferent enough to it -- and she can't leave it to Cloud, either, who from what I glean from your story is not really the best at this sort of thing.
most people just looked toward the waiting pyre, heartbreak and worry clear in their eyes.
I like that, apparently, Godo was a beloved leader. It must have been really hard for him after he lost the war.
"It's alright," said Reeve quietly. "We weren't his vassals. We're not expected to bow."
There's a part of me that will never not go ♥ at this sort of thing.
Sephiroth in her attic. A part of her was horrified, just with the name, the weight of their history, wanted nothing but to attack. Another part... she couldn't wrap her mind around the man as he had appeared in her bar -- dusty, hair tied back on his nape in a rough knot, irritated and making reluctant concessions -- temporarily neutered -- and so she floundered, because she didn't have the first clue what to think.
And so she had tried not to.
♥♥♥♥♥ AAAAH THIS MAKES ME WANT MORE NOW.
he looked so much more like a nobleman like this, neat and expressionless, than he had when they met him, cynical and weary, worried for his child but too emotionally clumsy to know how to let her see.
♥
It must have been a hour later, or perhaps more, when the pile of wood was just ashes and a couple of charred trunks, that an attendant waved the smoke away and Yuffie said, blunt and to the point, "Godo Kisaragi is dead."
That was when the arrows started raining.
You know, I knew to expect it and it still took me by surprise.
And then! Avalanche! Being all competent and kickass! Vincent appearing out of nowhere to catch arrows with his cape! The way Tifa automatically classifies Reeve as a non-combatant and remembers to open her kimono! (and see, Tifa, you are too a good mother; you got your
cubkid out of the fray before anything else.) ♥Oh, I hope Cloud, Cid and Nanaki get the culprits. Of course they'll probably poison themselves, but still.
None of the arrows would have touched Yuffie in her usual garb, quick as she was, but she was wrapped in too many layers to dodge anything. Tifa leapt over the still-smoking pyre, feeling heat rush across her bare legs. One attendant -- bodyguard maybe -- saw her coming but she didn't have the time to tell him she wasn't an enemy; she dodged, planted her foot on a wooden beam, used her momentum to fling herself up. She swatted another arrow down before she'd even really landed on the platform.
Oh. Oh, this scene was beautiful. You make me jealous of your mad action writing skills. ♥
This time it was very obvious how she was poisoned. I must have been really sleep deprived before. :-p And I love how Tifa doesn't even worry at all about herself, keeps trying to get Yuffie down where it's safe. ♥
Yuffie was standing on the edge of the platform, and a red stone shone from her headdress, and water rushed across the courtyard before the dragon god.
YAY at Yuffie laying the smackdown! My she must have been scared. And really really pissed.
What? It's already finished? What? On this kind of cliffhanger? *pout*
...Have I told you that you're evil lately?
Anyway, I loved it. Thanks for writing!
More?Re: part 2
EVIL! D: yeah, it's done that to me so often that I tend to copypaste big comments before posting. ... when I remember, because I don't remember all the time, and of course it seems that when I forget is when LJ decides to chomp down on them. DX eeevil.
*squishloves you for rewriting it anyway, especially SO BIG OMG* ♥♥♥♥♥♥
On the other, I don't remember his looking surprised. .__.
Yeah. It's kind of implied, but that's likely only clear to me. XD;;;
Zack's surprise is mostly expressed via dialogue and dialogue formatting, not narration. In my head Tifa justifies herself so much because of the surprise/disapproval she imagines Zack must feel, even if he's too polite to express it openly, because SHE would be too polite to express it. XD
Street rats sticking together?
That, and Reno is BADASS. XD Denzel wants to be Reno when he grows up. Maybe less amoral, but then again he doesn't think Reno's amorality is half as bad as other people who knew him as a ruthless Plate-dropping Turk think. Reno has mellowed out. (... outwardly, at least. Far as we know it might all be an act! He's still got that ruthless streak, he's just using his cynicism in less in-your-face ways.)
it's also fun that he pushes Tifa instead of Cloud
XD Cid is sneaky. Tifa is being emotional and uneasy about things, so he figures he wouldn't get a "everything is fine, wait until the end of the ceremony" stonewalling with Tifa like he would with Cloud. Far as he knows Cloud might believe it's still okayish, but Tifa disagrees and he's smart enough to want to know all sides.
... I might have to draw Cid in his kimono looking all scruffy, because prrrrrt. X3
...ouch. And yet, she does defer to his judgement, to the point of not telling, not even hinting to anybody else that, you know, that ridiculously dangerous mass murderer is back from the dead. ♥
Totally canon-based. XD Heh. Poor girl.
... It's funny how she's 100% more assertive with Sephiroth himself. Then again she doesn't trust him to know best. XDDD
I love how she doesn't really think of the rest of Edge. She'll feel terribly guilty if someone there does die, of course, but for now she just... doesn't think about it. Her people are safe, so that's what matters.
XD Exactly! She just... okay, civilians might perhaps die but they're all kinda faceless to her at the moment, and anyway she can't fight to protect them at 100% capability if she's worried sick for her people. So!
Re: part 2
I like that, apparently, Godo was a beloved leader. It must have been really hard for him after he lost the war.
Oh, some of them likely hated him for that, but they don't think Yuffie's going to be much better so that accounts for the worry. XD; Also it's been a while since Shinra fell and he was a competent leader in the five years interval, so they'd started to forgive him. ... Also I think there are many people who didn't come, and Avalanche is only seeing the ones who want to be in the front to see what's going on and they're more likely to be the ones who care that he's dead. Also, it's often that in monarchies the people get emotionally attached to their king, even if they think he sucks as a ruler, because he's a bit like the incarnation of their country and his person is all tied in with patriotism in general.
... long story short I think it was a bit more complicated than simply loving him for being a good leader, though that's likely also a part of it. XD;
♥♥♥♥♥ AAAAH THIS MAKES ME WANT MORE NOW.
>D
♥ writing more right now!
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I'm no mother, but a big sister and i somehow can "relate" to Tifa. She's frustrated about things she can't really control. sometimes there isn't a "wrong or a right" (as in: should i stay home with Denzel to look after him so Sephiroth can't hurt him - or: should i drive to Yuffie to protect and support her after her fathers death...)
she just should remember that she's got friends who will help her, whom she could trust and who might want to protect HER too.
wonder what Cloud will do when he sees her going down
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Cloud's a bit busy fighting right now, so i'm not sure yet how he's going to find out. Hmmmm.
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♥ thank you, dear.