Chapter 42
Gaea's Cliffs were as difficult a climb as Holzoff had promised, and scaling them took the entire day. Tifa was grateful for his help; he'd provided them with a detailed map and additional climbing gear, and without it she feared they would never have made it.
Exhausted, they found their way into a cave near the summit, and fell into a heavy sleep, all huddled together.
Tifa woke before the others. She felt Aeris in her arms, Jessie at her back. Barret's breathing, not far away, on the edge of a snore. Everyone was with her, but her wakefulness felt, for a moment, lonely.
Today she would kill a man.
She hoped it would be for the last time, though she didn't have any doubts about whether it was right or necessary, not this time. Even if she was doing it more for vengeance than to save the Planet, if they were both paths to the same goal, then it didn't matter. Did it?
It would mark five years to the day, Cloud had told her. Five years since Sephiroth had burned down what had been her entire world, killed the only family she'd had, and left her with nothing. Despite the shared tragedies, she didn't think any of the others had been through quite the same thing. That wasn't to say her experience had been the worst, but she'd struggled through its immediate aftermath alone.
Five years, and she had finally reached a place where she could trust another person completely. Her world had expanded immeasurably, and she had a family again, one she could count on for anything.
But she was still afraid of losing them. It made some things hard to say, hard to imagine. The futures that Aeris talked about... Tifa thought that part of her was always braced for the worst. She couldn't hang all her hopes on something that might not be there tomorrow. She always had to hold back some tiny piece.
"Tifa?" Aeris stirred, lifting her head to catch Tifa's eye and then nuzzling back into her neck. "You're awake already."
"Not for long."
"Long enough. I can tell."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"You're worrying again."
Tifa let out a soft breath. "How am I not supposed to worry?"
As if in answer, Aeris kissed her neck, and then pushed herself up to kiss her on the lips. Tifa closed her eyes, leaning into it. It wasn't this simple, but maybe she could forget for just a moment.
When Aeris pulled back, and Tifa opened her eyes, she noticed Jessie was up.
"Morning," Aeris said brightly, not remotely embarrassed, as usual.
"Morning," Jessie replied, fighting a smirk at Tifa's expression. "You guys are lucky Yuffie's still asleep."
"I'm not," came Yuffie's muffled voice from inside her sleeping bag. "I can hear the smacking."
Tifa pushed herself up, glancing around. "Well, if everyone's up, let's eat something and get moving. It's... a big day."
She wished they could have made a fire, and eaten a decent breakfast, but they had to make do with cold rations. The trees had vanished somewhere in the valley, before they'd reached Holzoff's house, and these caves were nothing but rock and ice, completely lifeless. Tifa had noticed Aeris standing with her head cocked during one of their rests, as though listening for something that wasn't there.
There wasn't much conversation. Tifa could try to fool herself that everyone was too sleepy from the cold, but that wasn't the reason. They packed up their gear in silence and gathered near the mouth of the cave.
Everyone was looking to her.
Gods, was she supposed to say something momentous here?
"Everyone... We've come a long way together. Let's finish this."
Barret put his hand on her shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. Her right-hand man. "Yeah," he said. "Let's give 'em hell."
The final climb to the top of Gaea's Cliffs was short, and comparatively easy, more like some stretches of the Nibel Mountains. Tifa helped Aeris up onto the ridge, and only once everyone was safely up did she turn to look ahead.
The crater was immense, stretching miles across so that the far side of it began to blue in the distance. That alone would have been worthy of a good, long stare, but deep in the crater, gouts of Mako energy spouted from the earth high into the air, forming a rough wall around the very center. No, not Mako. Mako was something the Shinra made.
"Woah," said Yuffie. "Is that... the Lifestream?"
"Yeah," said Aeris, her brow furrowed as she looked down at it. "That's the Planet, trying to heal itself."
"And that's where we'll find Sephiroth..." said Tifa. That was the energy he meant to use to summon Meteor. Energy he meant to steal for the exact opposite of its intended purpose.
Tifa glanced at the others, and decided it was better not to linger, not to hesitate.
"Come on," she said, and started down.
It was easy terrain, compared to what they'd traversed since leaving the City of the Ancients. There was no snow, as though the crater were too lifeless even for precipitation, and though the ground was rocky, it was all downhill. They made good time.
Tifa glanced back, wondering if Cloud and Zack could feel them getting closer, the way Cloud had seemed to know in the Temple. But neither of them was looking ahead. Zack brought up the rear, and he glanced behind them, as though anyone could be following. Cloud was helping Jessie down from a drop in the rock.
Jessie... Though she'd fought with them throughout their journey, that had never really been her role back in Midgar. She was a planner, a strategist. She could see her way through a fight, but she wasn't suited for the front lines, especially not at a time like this.
Tifa hung back until Jessie caught her up. "Jessie..." she began, and then went on with more certainty, "I want you keeping your distance on this one."
Jessie looked at her, taken aback. "What? Why?"
"Well-- One, you can keep an eye on the big picture for us. And two..."
"...I'm not as strong a fighter as you all," Jessie finished with a wry smile that told Tifa she'd already thought about it herself.
Tifa nodded. "But you can be our support," she said. "You can help keep us on our feet."
"I'll do my best. And hey, maybe you won't even need it. He ran away last time, didn't he?"
"Yeah, he kind of did." Tifa managed to return Jessie's smile, but they both knew it wouldn't be that easy. When they finally caught up to him, this time... She was sure he'd be at his strongest.
"Hey," said Zack from behind them. "Is it... getting warmer?"
Tifa had thought it was just the absence of the strong winds that buffeted the cliffs, but now that she paid it more attention... "It does feel that way, doesn't it?" she said.
"It must be all the energy gathered here," said Aeris. "Everything that should have been warming the rest of the continent..."
"We ain't about to get roasted in there instead, are we?" asked Barret.
Aeris shook her head. "No, I think we'll be all right."
Halfway down into the crater, they came across the first of them: a body, lying amid the rocks, obscured by a shapeless black cloak. Only, it wasn't quite so shapeless. Sticky with blood, it clung to the figure it hid. They all knew, on sight, that there was no chance, but Zack knelt anyway and felt for a pulse. He shook his head.
"There's no tattoo," Cloud observed, frowning.
One of the person's hands lay outstretched, and Zack gingerly checked the other. Cloud was right: there was no number.
"So... it was more than fourteen?" Aeris concluded.
"Not so many more, I hope," said Tifa. Who had this person been? she wondered. Why had they been summoned north, and come so close, only to be ended here?
"If there were a lot more, you think we would've come across one without a number before now," Jessie reasoned, and Tifa decided that was what she wanted to believe. They found a few others as they went, one with a number they hadn't accounted for, others without. All dead.
As they drew nearer to the wall of Lifestream, what Tifa had at first taken for snow revealed itself as a blanket of mist hanging low to the ground. Her boots made eddies in the film of its edges, and it swirled closed again behind her.
The air continued to warm, and soon they began shedding their coats and scarves. By the time the wall loomed in front of them, it felt almost as warm as the early autumn it should have been.
There were moments when the Lifestream ebbed, the wall growing as thin as the mist, and Tifa could make out a way through, but it seemed dangerous to cross.
"Hang on," said Aeris before Tifa could ask her. "I'll ask the Planet if it can open a path for us."
She stepped closer to the wall, and the glow of the Lifestream before her was the same as the glow of the materia in her hair. Her eyes were closed, focusing inward, but not on herself.
The minutes passed, but not in silence. The Lifestream made a rushing sound like wind, but also... something else. A faint wail, like the sound from Bugenhagen's machine. The cries of the Planet. Tifa glanced at the others; Yuffie had her hands over her ears, and Cloud kept his distance, looking uneasy.
At last the flow subsided, and a gap opened before them.
"Quickly," Aeris said. "It's hard for it to concentrate like this."
Tifa motioned the others ahead of her, and walked through last with Aeris. The Lifestream wall closed again behind them.
But Tifa stopped in confusion on the other side. The light had blinded her for a moment, but this wasn't the crater anymore. Dread crept over her at the sight of the walkway ahead, suspended high over a pit of Mako, and on the far side...
"Tifa..." Cloud stepped into her line of sight, blocking her view. "This isn't real. Sephiroth is close... It's just an illusion."
The others stood ahead on the walkway, too, looking at her in concern. Tifa swallowed and nodded. "You're right. But... We still have to move forward, don't we?"
Aeris's hand slipped into hers. "That doesn't mean you have to see it."
Tifa understood what she was offering: to lead her through blindly. But she shook her head. "I'll see it anyway," she said. It would be waiting behind her eyelids, and her skin would crawl for imagining what else might be waiting in Sephiroth's recreation of this awful memory.
She held onto Aeris's hand just the same, and as she took a step forward, the others cautiously turned to go on. Tifa kept her gaze trained on their backs, seeing the illusion of her father's body only on the edge of her vision.
They passed into the next chamber, and that long staircase leading up to the door marked 'Jenova' appeared before them. Everyone tensed at the sight of Sephiroth at the top of those stairs--the memory, or the man? His back was to them, and he didn't turn as they entered.
Instead, Tifa watched as a vision of herself, five years younger, stalked in from behind them. The edge of the Masamune scraped across the floor. She started up the stairs slowly, but reached their top at a run and swung the sword high over her head--only for Sephiroth to spin and catch her hands around the hilt.
It was an odd feeling, watching the scene unfold outside of herself. To see the rage on her own face, to see how small she looked beside Sephiroth, their brief struggle over the blade nearly pulling her off her feet. The Masamune sliced into her, and her body flew back, hitting the stairs halfway down and rolling to the bottom.
The door marked 'Jenova' opened, but instead of stepping through, the Sephiroth at the top of the stairs looked directly at Tifa, at her as she was now. "This will always be etched into your memory. Your loss, and your failure."
"No..." she said slowly. "I survived this. I'm more than this."
"If you've overcome it, then why do you still hide the evidence?"
Tifa's hand went reflexively to her chest, to the scar beneath her shirt. An ugly reminder that she didn't like to look at, that she kept hidden because it only led to painful questions. Nothing about it was easy, still.
Aeris squeezed her other hand. "It's just a scar," she said. "He doesn't know you, or how far you've come."
"He's just trying to shake our confidence," added Cloud. "Using dirty tricks because he knows that's the only way he can win."
Zack crouched beside her younger self, as he had in the reality of five years ago. "Cloud's right," he said. "He wants us to think today won't go any differently from this day. But, a lot's changed since then."
"You're right," said Sephiroth. "It has."
The scene shifted around them, morphing into the village of Gongaga. It had been a sunny day, Tifa recalled now as she found herself squinting after the dim of the reactor. Disoriented, everyone stepped back from the illusory figures who stood among them.
It was after Sephiroth had revealed himself. He grappled with Tifa while the others stood at a distance. Aeris, focused on channeling some spell. Yuffie, having just caught her shuriken out of the air. And Cloud, head clutched in his hands.
Tifa and Sephiroth broke apart, and Sephiroth swung the Masamune. Cloud snapped upright like a marionette on its strings, and then lurched forward, his arms shoving forward into her back. Yuffie shrieked, Aeris screamed, and Tifa again saw herself collapse, blood spilling out of her.
The memories of Aeris and Yuffie vanished, but Cloud remained. Instead of backing away, though, he came to stand beside Sephiroth, looking down at her wounded self.
"Five years ago," said Sephiroth, "they tried to come to your rescue. If they failed you then, why do you think you can trust your back to them now, when they carry a piece of my will within them? You think it was your voice that brought Cloud back to himself? It was the perfect opportunity to place a spy in your midst."
"Oh, shut up!" said Yuffie, and she hurled her shuriken. It passed clean through Sephiroth and returned to her hand, leaving his image unscathed.
The real Cloud stood with his hands clenched into fists at his side. He shook his head slowly. "It doesn't matter... what you meant for me. That all ends here."
"I don't buy it anyway," said Jessie. "You're just trying to sound cleverer than you are. After all, you made a huge mistake here in showing your hand. If it weren't for what happened at Gongaga, you could've learned about Holy. But we kept that from you, and you didn't even have the chance to stop it."
Sephiroth's expression froze cold on his face. The scene shifted again, and he vanished with it.
They were in the halls of the Shinra building. This time, their past selves were absent from the picture, but the corpse of a soldier lay at their feet, and Tifa knew: this was the moment when she had seen Sephiroth for the first time, for the first time since Nibelheim.
Yuffie glanced around. "Where is this?" she wondered, and she wasn't the only one who didn't recognize it. Cloud and Vincent were looking around, too.
"Shinra Headquarters..." said Barret, glancing to Tifa. "Back in Midgar."
Someone screamed ahead, and a body tumbled out of a doorway into the hall. A tall figure followed.
But it wasn't Sephiroth.
He still carried the Masamune, but he wore the deep blue uniform of a typical First Class SOLDIER, stained and torn, and his hair was jet black.
They all looked to Zack, who stood staring, his brow furrowed.
"This is..."
"This is the reality of what happened that day," said the Zack in the illusion. He made a sweeping gesture with the Masamune, indicating the corpses. "Every single one of them who died in this building fell to your hand. But you haven't wanted to remember that, have you?"
Zack swallowed hard.
"Man, I know we thought about this before," said Barret, "but this one's gotta be fake, right? If Sephiroth coulda controlled him like this the whole time, he woulda had him try an' take us out."
"No," said Zack. "It's... not fake. I remember being here. After I heard about the murders, I kept trying not to think about it, but... He's right. This was me."
"Then... we saw each other," said Aeris. "Here, first."
Cloud glanced over at her, and then he started to nod. "Yeah." He gave Zack's arm a tug, turning him away from his illusory double. "I don't care what he says, it was Tifa's voice that brought me out of it. It was the same thing with you, here. You saw Aeris, and you started to remember who you were."
"I don't know..." said Zack.
"Cloud and Barret are right," said Tifa. "Even if this is what happened then... Sephiroth stopped using you after this. I think he couldn't."
"You can theorize all you want," said the illusory Zack. "It'll be different, when you put it to the test."
He turned his back on them and walked down the hall, and even after he turned a corner, the memory of the Shinra building remained around them. The real Zack stared after him, his expression uncharacteristically hard to read, but Cloud hadn't let go of his arm.
Jessie put her hand to the wall, but unlike the image of Sephiroth, it didn't pass through. "I... guess we go forward?" she said.
One of the elevators opened as they approached. Its proportions had warped, so that the platform within was large enough to accommodate their entire party, but Tifa stopped outside of it.
"I don't really want to accept this invitation," she said.
"There must be some way out of this illusion," said Nanaki.
"Gotta be," Barret agreed. He raised his gun arm, pointing it into the elevator. "Let's see if this glass still acts like glass."
It shattered as the bullets struck it, and it crunched beneath Barret's feet as he walked across to investigate the far side. They were still in the crater, so even in the illusion, there was no way the drop could be real, right?
Sephiroth didn't allow them to find out. As though they'd taken the elevator anyway, their surroundings changed. Aeris's hand tightened around hers. They stood on the 67th floor. The lab.
The illusory Zack stood a few paces away before the stasis chamber that held Jenova, breathing hard. Blood spattered his face and the floor, and the bodies of several lab technicians lay crumpled around the room. The Masamune had already scored deep marks across the front of the stasis chamber, and now Zack planted the blade in the floor to take hold of the door. He heaved, and as he pulled the door free, fluid spilled out onto the floor. Tentacles followed, edging their way out and gripping the ragged edges of the opening.
The headless body of Jenova pulled itself out into the lab. Zack stepped back from the creature, but in a blink, it had assumed the form of Sephiroth. His hand settled about the hilt of the Masamune, claiming it from where Zack had left it.
"This tour just keeps getting grosser," said Yuffie with a grimace. "I really wanna step off now."
The illusions of Sephiroth and Zack turned without acknowledging them and headed for the freight elevator, disappearing upstairs.
"This way," whispered a voice from the other direction. It sounded familiar, but...
"Lucrecia?" said Vincent, stepping towards the open door of the nearby office.
Jessie put a hand on his arm. "It could be a trick," she said.
Vincent shook his head. "What would be the difference? All of this is a trick."
Jessie exchanged glances with Tifa, who could only shrug helplessly. He had a point.
"Our only other option is to go where Sephiroth directs us," said Nanaki. "I say we try it. Lucrecia has this power, too."
"All right," Tifa decided.
She followed close behind Vincent, bracing herself for... what, she couldn't know at this point. But on the other side of the door, they found themselves back in the crater. Rocky walls, marbled green like the mountains of Nibelheim, began to close in around them. Tifa glanced back, but besides her view of the lab through the open door, it was hard to look at. She didn't see the outside of the Shinra building, or the crater, or... anything. Her eyes seemed to slide right off of that illusory place. But she did see, running along its edge, a deep fissure in the earth. Best they hadn't tried going out the windows.
"Lucrecia?" Vincent said again, looking around. She was nowhere to be seen.
"It's difficult..." came her voice, louder now but directionless; it could have come from anywhere. "Can you see the crater now?"
"Yes," said Tifa. "Are you... cancelling out the illusion?"
"In a sense. I've made my own here, in the way I've always done. A projection of empty space. It won't work for long. You need to hurry."
Tifa glanced at the others and started forward, deeper into the crater. They couldn't waste the opportunity.
"How are you able to do this over such a long distance?" Jessie wondered, posing her question to the air around them. "Is it..." She trailed off and glanced back.
Zack and Cloud had fallen to the rear of the party, Zack with his head bowed, Cloud with an arm across his back as they spoke in low tones. Had Lucrecia really done to someone what had been done to them?
"After what you said about the clones," said Lucrecia, "I got to thinking. I could never control them, but there are samples of Jenova at the lab. Small enough to be mindless, near enough I could practice. And I found a piece of it, a straggler, making its way north for the Reunion. That's why I don't have long. I can use this fragment to guide you, but I can't fight that pull."
"Do you know what lies ahead?" Vincent asked her.
"I... can sense Jenova," she said. "Beyond that, I don't know."
Vincent was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "Thank you... for being our guide, Lucrecia. Even knowing what you might have found here."
It was even longer before Lucrecia's reply. "Come out of this alive, Vincent. Anything you must do, to that end... I'll forgive."
Even if that meant killing her son, Tifa thought, glancing at him. He didn't answer.
The path ahead approached a sort of hollow, like another, shallower depression at the center of the crater, surrounded by low rock walls veined with Lifestream that had crystallized into materia. A single figure waited for them at its mouth, a tall man in a black coat, and long silver hair.
"That isn't Sephiroth," Lucrecia said hurriedly. "I'm sorry, this is as much as I can--"
And her voice was gone. A few paces ahead of them, a severed tentacle appeared amid the rocks. It slithered across the ground towards Sephiroth, and vanished before it quite reached him.
Tifa unslung her pack, tossing it onto the ground nearby. The others followed suit, unburdening themselves and drawing weapons. Together they approached the figure.
"If that's not Sephiroth," Jessie began, "then..."
"A shame that thing had to ruin the game," said Sephiroth, or the illusion of him.
"That was Sephiroth's mother," growled Vincent.
"Was it? It's my understanding that a mother acts as a caretaker. I may only be the custodian of Sephiroth's memories, but I see no such figure in them."
Cloud shook his head slowly. "You're saying Sephiroth is..."
"Dead," finished Sephiroth's illusion. "When you managed to kill him, five years ago."
"So all this time, you've been... Jenova," said Aeris.
Sephiroth smiled, and his image shifted. Professor Gast stood there instead, looking a little different than he had in the videos they'd seen--younger, maybe, with a Shinra badge pinned to his lab coat. The way he must have looked at the time of the Jenova Project.
"That is the name that Gast gave me," said his image. "I don't mind using it. You could never comprehend my true name."
"Then you're... the one who made this wound," Aeris said. "The one who murdered my ancestors. Why did you hate us so much?"
"I didn't at first," said Jenova, in Gast's voice, wearing the guise of Aeris's father. "True hatred requires some measure of parity, and you were like worms... But I had a long time, after you imprisoned me, to rethink that. Your descendants, at least, aren't without merit. Foolish, but useful. They took bits and pieces of me, hoping to make themselves stronger... What a fascinating idea, I thought. Perhaps I'll do the same."
Aeris shook her head. "You really think you can reshape this, all of the Planet's energy, into a part of yourself? Your plan is insane."
Jenova shifted again, Gast's image replaced by that of Hojo. He pushed his glasses up his nose. "You may not be able to fathom it," he said, "but that doesn't make it insane."
Tifa saw Aeris tense at the sound of his voice, and she stepped forward. "Enough of this. We know what you are. Why don't you show us your true self?"
Hojo smiled, and then he was gone. In his place was something much larger, as Tifa had expected. It was even less humanoid than its previous incarnations; she could identify a head and torso, but tentacles grew from where a human rib cage would have been, and the head had a strange, bulbous crown. Where wing-like appendages had before extended from its back, there were so many now as to form a grotesque bloom out from its body. Maybe they did serve the function of wings, somehow, as the creature hovered some feet above the ground.
"Are you sure this is what you really wanted?" It was Sephiroth's voice again. The monster had no mouth that Tifa could see, and maybe it had never had a voice of its own.
Was this the full truth now? she wondered. Had this thing donned the guise of Sephiroth again and again since the Shinra building, and used it to torment her? Had it played with Sephiroth's mind, too, and incited his actions in Nibelheim?
Was this the object of her vengeance?
"I don't see the Black Materia," said Yuffie.
"Jenova must still be hiding it from us," Nanaki reasoned.
"All right," said Tifa. "Everyone keep your eyes open--"
She couldn't say more. One of those tentacles shot for Aeris's throat, and Tifa grabbed it before it could coil tight. Yuffie's shuriken flashed, slicing through it. The severed end writhed in Tifa's grip, and she hurled it away from herself. Aeris stumbled back and raised her staff in front of herself, hands shaky.
Barret and Vincent opened fire on Jenova's head, and Tifa saw Jessie's hand on her rifle, but as Tifa had asked, she glanced around and moved for safer ground, a cleft high on the edge of the hollow.
Tifa took Aeris's shoulder. "You all right?"
"I still feel like something's off," said Aeris. She looked around, past Jenova, but shook her head. "Maybe it's just... being near Jenova. It always makes me feel ill."
"Just keep your distance. You'll be all right."
But Jenova targeted Aeris with a single-minded malice, leaving Tifa always on the defensive as she stayed at Aeris's side to protect her. If something felt off about it... she didn't have time to think it through. No way was she going to allow Jenova to complete its genocide. And maybe it bore the Cetra a particular hatred, but maybe Aeris was also the greatest threat to it. Her magic was proving stronger here, in the presence of the Lifestream.
Unfortunately, Jenova was stronger, too, now that it was nearly whole. No matter how many times they cut off those tentacles, they always grew back, even after they began burning the severed ends to prevent them from returning to the body. Touching them was somehow draining, and Jenova spewed poisonous fumes that left them choking and made it difficult to approach.
Barret, Vincent, and Yuffie could attack from a distance, putting holes in that bulbous head. Cloud, Zack, and Nanaki always went in together, fighting past the tentacles to clear a path for one of them to reach its body. A few times they sliced so deep, Tifa was sure Jenova would feel it, but it remained unfazed, and eventually even those wounds closed up again.
Were its regenerative abilities really this powerful? No wonder so many of the Cetra had lost their lives to it. No wonder they had only been able to subdue it, not to kill it.
Would AVALANCHE be able to do the same?
Tifa slipped up. One of the tentacles caught her wrist, sapping the strength from her as it dragged her out of the way. The other reached for Aeris.
Aeris, who unleashed then the most powerful ice spell Tifa had ever seen, and something flickered.
"Tifa!" Jessie shouted, drawing her attention. She pointed deeper into the hollow. "It's a trick! He is here."
Where she gestured was nothing but barren rock, but Tifa kept her guard up and watched. Aeris and Yuffie coordinated an attack, together nearly encasing Jenova's entire torso in ice, and for a few seconds, its illusion slipped. It was long enough for Tifa to spot the black shape on the far side of their battleground.
There was something different about the crater itself, too. In that instant, the walls of the Lifestream no longer rose high around them, but had fallen out of sight. Tendrils of green spilled over the sides of the hollow, reaching towards that shape, as though he were breathing them in.
"This battle is just a distraction!" Nanaki cried, and Tifa grit her teeth. Even if it were, how did they get past it, to Sephiroth, when they couldn't even perceive him?
"Tifa," said Vincent, suddenly at her side. "I require your assistance."
She didn't know what he meant, but it sounded like a plan. She caught Nanaki's eye, nodding him over to guard Aeris, and quickly followed Vincent a short distance away. He sat down on a rocky protrusion and for some reason began to remove his boots.
"What're you thinking?" she asked him.
"We need Jenova dealt with, if we want to reach Sephiroth. If I can trigger a transformation..."
Tifa met his gaze. She hadn't seen it for herself, the thing he'd turned into back in Cosmo Canyon. Stoic as he was, it was hard to know exactly how he felt about it, but it was something that he'd kept from them, and something he'd avoided. A last resort.
But this was the time for last resorts, wasn't it?
"What do you need me to do?" she asked.
"I want you to strike me."
"What?"
"I feel them begin to emerge when I'm injured, but I don't want to throw myself to Jenova."
Tifa glanced at the monster. She hesitated, and then nodded. "All right."
Vincent rose to his feet. "Don't hold back," he said.
She took a breath, clenched her fist, and struck him hard in the face. He was a slight man, and he went down, and Tifa took several steps back as the sound of his fall drew the others' attention.
"Tifa?" said Aeris in alarm.
"He asked me to..."
Vincent's body trembled, as it had after Sephiroth had attacked him at the Temple, but this time he didn't fight it. His shoulders broadened, and his muscles strained at clothing that had been loose moments ago. His face elongated into a wolf-like snout, long claws grew from his hand and feet, and massive horns shadowed his eyes, which still glowed a fierce red.
Vincent, the monster, pushed himself up and snarled at her, and Tifa took another step back. Did he remember her as an ally, or only the person who'd assaulted him moments ago?
But he didn't advance on her. His tail lashed, and he turned toward Jenova.
The others made way as Vincent charged the creature.
Its tentacles lashed for him, but he grabbed them in his hands, and by brute strength and the claws of his flesh hand, he tore one of them free. Yuffie's shuriken severed the other, and Vincent hurled it to the ground.
"He still needs back-up, right?" said Yuffie, though she was staring, too.
"Y-yeah," said Tifa, and she glanced around at everyone. "Let's back him up."
Aeris was already in concentration for a spell, something to protect him in his wild fury. Barret and Yuffie could still take aim around him, and Tifa moved closer with the others in case there was an opening.
The tentacles momentarily dealt with, Vincent hurled himself onto Jenova's body. His claws dug into its flesh for purchase, and when he reached its head, he unleashed such a flurry of blows that the illusion around them flickered again. He grabbed one of those strange wings and tore, nearly pulling it free, and Jenova dipped a little closer to the ground.
A severed stump of tentacle attempted to knock him loose, but he clung on, and retaliated with a blast of fire magic.
Jenova was, finally, looking rough. Ichor oozed from it, and its tentacles hadn't begun to regrow. The illusion broke entirely, and Tifa could see Sephiroth in the distance. This fight might not be over, but they needed to push on, to reach him before he could complete his summon.
A piercing sound scraped the air, and a white flash blinded her. Pain followed, directionless and intense, something white-hot that burned her from the inside. She couldn't breathe, like the air had gone, and her chest ached from the effort of trying anyway.
A rattling gasp found its way into her lungs, and her vision began to clear, a green mist parting. She had hit the ground, and she struggled to push herself upright. Everyone had fallen, though the monster that was Vincent staggered to his feet. Jenova's body scraped the ground, its head in easier reach. Vincent lunged forward, jaws closing around its throat. The stump of its tentacle slammed into him, but he tore some flesh loose as he fell.
His body collapsed, and then seemed to sink in on itself as the transformation reverted. Tifa scrambled up and ran to him. She got a hand under one arm, and Cloud took the other, and they dragged him back.
Jessie had leapt down from her place, the only one unscathed, and her healing magic swept over each of them as she came in range.
Aeris was back on her feet, her staff planted firmly against the ground. Energy peeled off and swirled around her, and a great sheet of ice snapped shut around Jenova, encasing it completely. It held a moment, and then shattered, but beneath it, Jenova remained frozen, almost crystallized.
Aeris swayed, and Barret caught her before she fell. Tifa caught her eye across the battlefield. She'd cleared the way. This was really it.
"All right," said Tifa. "Aeris, you take a breather. Jessie, look after Vincent. Everyone... let's end this."
That last spell of Jenova's had taken something out of her, and she could feel it in her limbs as she approached the figure across the hollow. But in its wake, a certainty settled over her. In the distance, Sephiroth, the real Sephiroth, stood to meet them, his motions calm and controlled. With Jenova confined, there could be no doubt: he was no puppet. His actions were his own.
And so, this was no illusion, and there would be no escape for either party. What had begun five years ago would end here.
The flow of Lifestream ebbed as they neared him. He didn't look quite like the Sephiroth who had appeared to them over the past months. His pauldrons were missing, and a large tear in his coat left it hanging open, revealing a pale scar across his abdomen... where Cloud had run him through. His long hair was tangled, not so pristine.
His eyes, though, were the same, and Tifa thought that it had been him, and not Jenova, projecting himself through the clones. That was what had felt off, when Jenova had told them he was dead.
He held the Masamune in his left hand, and the Black Materia in his right. He met Tifa's gaze, but there was no reason for them to speak. He knew why they'd come.
When she'd seen his image back in the Shinra building, instinct had nearly led her to charge straight for him. She didn't stop it this time, knowing that her friends would be right beside her.
Sephiroth raised his sword, but some magic left him before they reached him. Tifa's world exploded into black, and was gone.
When she came to, Aeris was leaning over her. "Oh, thank goodness," she said.
"What...?" Tifa started to ask. She saw Cloud standing over her, too, his shoulders relaxing in relief. He must have carried her back here.
"I'm not sure," Aeris admitted. "I've never seen magic like that. Like a dark fire... You should rest a minute."
Tifa pushed herself up. Vincent lay nearby, still unconscious. "How is he?" she asked Jessie.
"Jenova's last spell hit him pretty hard," she said. "He didn't heal everything like before, but... I think he'll be all right now."
Just down for the count, Tifa thought. She wasn't about to let the same happen to her; she'd barely started. Back across the hollow, Zack faced off against Sephiroth. Their swords clashed, and it was true, Zack wasn't quite as powerful a swordsman, but Barret forced Sephiroth to split his attention, maintaining a shield spell to deflect the bullets. Sephiroth nearly landed a cutting blow anyway, but Nanaki struck him with a fire spell and bought Zack time to shore up his stance.
Tifa started to climb to her feet.
"Tifa..." said Aeris.
"I'm all right. Maybe, better than all right. Coming at me with that, it's almost like he was afraid of me. I'd like to give him a reason."
Aeris caught her hand, and she felt one last wave of healing wash over her. Aeris slumped with the effort, and Tifa gave her hand a squeeze. She looked to Cloud.
"Let's go."
As they turned to the battle, a wide arc of the Masamune sent Zack flying backwards, but it left an opening. Nanaki lunged in and clamped his jaws down on Sephiroth's off hand, and he dropped the Black Materia.
Yuffie grabbed it. Sephiroth turned on her, but when the Masamune swung, Barret caught the blade with his gun arm. Tifa leapt in, feeling a certain satisfaction as her fist connected with Sephiroth's face, and Cloud was right behind her to meet Sephiroth's blade with his own.
"It's definitely him this time," Nanaki commented, falling in with them as Barret and Yuffie backed off, and it wasn't ichor on his fangs this time. "Whatever he is, he still bleeds."
Together, the three of them had him off-balance, just for a moment. Then he unleashed a fire spell that blasted them backwards. Tifa hit the ground and rolled. When she started to push herself up, Jessie was there, and she could see Yuffie crouched by Nanaki.
Zack charged for Sephiroth, sword raised, but his body jerked to a halt as though he'd reached the end of an invisible tether. His face contorted into a grimace as he turned instead to face the rest of them. He gripped his sword with trembling hands, and behind him, Sephiroth smiled.
Cloud had pushed himself up on his hands, and Zack locked eyes with him. His muscles strained, and then of a sudden he pivoted and hurled his sword at Sephiroth. The blade sliced through the air--and through Sephiroth's arm, a deep enough cut that he staggered.
He began to heal himself, and Barret opened fire. Sephiroth staggered again as several of the bullets struck him in the chest, and then he got his shield spell back up.
As Jessie moved to tend to Cloud's burns, Aeris came up beside Tifa. Her step was sluggish, but she focused, and brought a bolt spell down on Sephiroth.
He wasn't smiling now. They were hurting him, and he had no allies, not even the one he'd tried to make for himself in Zack. Glaring at Aeris, he readied a spell of his own, but Tifa pulled her back out of the way as a bolt struck down where she'd been standing.
Sephiroth slashed his sword through the air, and there was no dodging what came next. It fell on them like snow, pinpricks of red light that sank into their skin and then burned. Tifa's legs gave way beneath her, and even her heartbeats felt heavy, as though they took all of her strength.
She couldn't move her head at first, but everyone in sight had fallen, too, even Jessie beside Cloud, and she felt Aeris's arm limp against her back. Sephiroth completed his healing spell and advanced... towards where Yuffie had been.
Tifa willed her body to move, and managed to shift herself onto one arm. Yuffie and Nanaki were down, though Nanaki's body shook with effort. He found his feet with Sephiroth a pace away and launched himself into the air. He tackled Sephiroth, jaws sinking into his throat, and Sephiroth went down.
But only for a moment. Sephiroth threw Nanaki off of him, and as he stood, he swung the Masamune almost casually, slicing into Nanaki's body as Yuffie stared in horror.
Tifa scrambled to her feet just as Yuffie screamed something at Sephiroth. The energy around them took shape, and a massive serpent formed in the air behind Yuffie. Tifa caught shock on Sephiroth's face before it dove for him. It passed through him, becoming a torrent of water that knocked him off his feet, swept him across the hollow, and slammed him into the rock on the far side.
Yuffie fell back again. Tifa helped Aeris up and together they hurried to her. The others met them there.
Nanaki was bleeding badly, and Aeris dropped to his side, her magic working over him. Yuffie was unconscious, but her breathing was steady.
"That's one powerful kid," Barret remarked. He glanced back as he gathered her into his arms, but Sephiroth was still picking himself up.
"That had to be some wake-up call," said Tifa, "throwing a real god at him."
Barret carried Yuffie back to where Vincent rested, out of the way, and once Aeris and Jessie had healed Nanaki as best they could for now, Zack carried him out of the fight, too. They were down three now, but they'd knocked Sephiroth down a peg, and Nanaki had taken a literal bite out of him. Tifa saw him take a beat to heal the gash in his throat before he got to his feet.
Zack crossed the hollow to retrieve his sword. He caught Tifa's eye, and she nodded, and together with him and Cloud, she rushed Sephiroth as he approached. Sephiroth parried Cloud and Zack, but Tifa ducked in past the swords and slammed her fist into his throat. When he stumbled, she pressed her advantage, targeting every weak point, every injury she'd seen him sustain and maybe not quite heal.
Sephiroth raised his hand against her, and Zack sliced a gash down his arm, but the spell came together still. As flames began to swirl around her feet, Cloud shoved her out of the way. He didn't quite make it clear himself, and an intense heat exploded at his back.
Zack moved in as he went down, driving Sephiroth back and giving Tifa and Barret space to pull Cloud back. Aeris and Jessie were moving in for healing, but they weren't close enough yet.
Zack's sword cut another gash across Sephiroth's chest, but Sephiroth was ignoring his wounds now, and he didn't slow. Before Zack could pull back to parry him, the Masamune came down on his hand, nearly severing it. The sword fell from Zack's grasp and he cried out, crumpling to his knees.
Sephiroth raised the Masamune for a killing blow. Tifa rushed in and swept his legs out from under him, dropping him. Barret came to back her up, and as Sephiroth climbed back to his feet, they forced him back, away from Zack and Cloud so that Aeris and Jessie could heal them.
Tifa kept low and close, too close for Sephiroth to effectively use the Masamune, and the bullets flying for his head forced Sephiroth to use his magic to defend himself. He was looking bad, she thought, bleeding from his arm, his chest, his face. She slammed her knee into that wound on his chest, and he grabbed her leg. Overconfident.
He wrenched his grip, and she heard something crack. He flung her down, and for an instant, the pain overwhelmed everything else.
Zack was beside her, hauling her back. She could see his right hand, only partly healed, still useless.
Barret stood between them and Sephiroth. His bullets still struck that shield, and when the Masamune came for him, he blocked it with his gun arm--but only the first swing.
Tifa screamed as the Masamune ran him through.
But Barret kept his feet. His teeth grit, he grabbed the blade with his left hand and held on tight, not allowing Sephiroth to pull it free.
"Finish him...!" came Cloud's shout. He couldn't rise, but he used the last of his strength to hurl his sword, and the blade clattered in front of her and Zack.
Tifa met his eye. They each got a hand around its hilt, and Tifa put her other arm around Zack's shoulders. Together they stumbled closer, and together they lifted the heavy blade.
Sephiroth released the Masamune, but too late; Cloud's sword slammed into his side, nearly bisecting him. He staggered, and a wind spell blew past from behind them to knock him off his feet.
Tifa didn't glance back at Aeris, but advanced with Zack, and they stood over Sephiroth. He was still breathing, but all the threat had gone out of him. He was at their mercy.
"We're not finished yet," said Zack, and he was right. These wounds would kill a normal man, but Sephiroth wasn't normal. Were the Jenova cells already working to heal him? How much could they do before Holy came for him?
This was the moment.
"You would never change, would you?" Tifa said. In Sephiroth's eyes, she saw no regret, and she decided there would be none in her heart either.
She and Zack hefted the sword high, and they let it drop on his neck. The sound was ugly, and it echoed in her ears even after Sephiroth's eyes had gone glassy.
It was a man they'd killed, not a nightmare any longer.
They let the sword go, and Zack eased her down, though her vision still went black a moment with the movement.
"Barret," she heard Jessie sobbing from just behind her.
He'd dropped to his knees, the long sword still protruding from his abdomen. Aeris caught Tifa's eye, and she went to Barret without question. They had to pull him through this. None of them were supposed to die here.
"We did it," said Zack from beside her, still staring at the body. "He's really dead."
"Yeah..."
In the moment, Tifa felt numb. She didn't have the energy left for feelings, and it wasn't just the broken leg; everything was catching up to her. She closed her eyes and fought against the urge to pass out. There was a thrumming in her ears.
"What's... that sound...?" said Barret.
"Shit," said Zack.
Tifa opened her eyes, looked at him, and then followed his gaze upward. Over the lip of the crater had appeared an airship. Shinra's airship.
Tifa's heart leapt into her throat and she glanced around at her friends. There was no way. No way all of them could escape. Half of them were unconscious, the rest barely moving. The Shinra had let their enemies fight each other, and now they could capitalize on the aftermath. Sephiroth's threat was neutralized, and they could make AVALANCHE their prisoners.
And that wasn't all they could claim.
"Jessie," Tifa said urgently. She was the only one of them in any kind of shape for this. "Take Yuffie and get out of here with the Black Materia."
"But--"
"She's right," Barret interrupted. "You gotta go."
"Toss me your Restore," said Zack. "I'm not half bad with materia."
Right. An ex-SOLDIER. Of course he knew how to use it.
"Zack and I will take care of Barret," said Aeris, an uncanny calm to her voice. "But we're in no shape to fight, and we can't let the Black Materia fall into Shinra's hands either."
"...okay," said Jessie. She passed her Restore materia to Zack and then laid a hand on Barret's shoulder. "Don't... Don't you go dying on me. We're gonna see each other again."
"Count on it," said Tifa, and Barret grunted an affirmative.
Jessie picked herself up, glanced up at the airship, and then ran to where Yuffie lay.
This wouldn't be the end, right? Shinra had attributed too much to AVALANCHE by now to let them go quietly. It would have to be a spectacle. Not here, in the nowhere of the world.
Besides, they'd just killed Sephiroth. They could survive anything, defeat anything. Just give them a little time.