Chapter Text
Upon leaving Aphromia/Isabel’s home, Tifa quickly realized that the surrounding buildings and the fortress only made up the outskirts of Mideel, merely scratching the surface of the village itself. As she and her friends made their way deeper within in search of Cloud, they were in awe of what they found.
The village of Mideel was centered around a giant tree so massive that its height rivaled even that of the Shinra building. Tifa remembered seeing it from far away aboard the Highwind. It was intertwined with mako shards, crystals, and smaller offshoots of trees and greenery, giving it a sacred, holy feel. Just a few hundred yards beyond the tree were tall, circular cliffs nestling the village in the space between, and protecting it on all sides save the one entrance towards the fort. Creeks and springs were abundant, pouring in from cracks in the rocks.
Because of its unique topography, the village was multi-layered with some structures being built on the ground floor, and others suspended. Boardwalks of wooden planks lined the streets, spiraling up into staircases, ramps, and bridges. One could easily get lost trying to navigate the place.
Regardless, the atmosphere was peaceful and slow-paced. Isabel was right about the seniority of the village’s population. Everywhere Tifa looked, content white-haired folk in sandals shuffled along, hands either behind their backs or in the hold of their beloved.
Tifa couldn’t help her eyes from wandering to their entwined hands.
“Lessee…she said it was on the second level near the back so…this way?” Barret led the group up a flight of stairs, trying to follow the instructions Isabel had given them.
They came to a large building built halfway into the cliff, beautifully decorated with colorful flower beds and hanging plants. In the yard out to the side, a few patients in hospital clothes were enjoying the sunshine—either sitting in the grass, playing chess, or chatting with their caretakers.
Tifa felt her heart start pounding as they entered inside, her awareness sharpening almost disorientingly. She scanned every head for blonde hair, and every face for blue-green mako eyes.
They came to the front desk where a fiery red-haired woman was flipping through some paperwork. She had a serious, but kind look about her, with her long hair pulled up into a clip and a pair of glasses sitting on her nose. A badge on her blouse said “Mideel Medical Center - Dr. Rosie Inbar.”
“Good morning,” she smiled upon seeing the party. “How may I help you?”
The group quieted, allowing Tifa to step forward, her heart now deafening in her ears.
“Good morning. Uhm, I wanted to know if you have a patient here by the name of Cloud Strife?”
“Cloud… I don’t think I remember seeing a Cloud…,” Dr. Inbar mused. She flipped through some papers on her clipboard, using a pen to trace down each page. “No, sorry. It doesn’t look like we do.”
Then Tifa remembered what Isabel said about the tsunami survivors being found on the shoreline.
“Oh! Actually, there’s a chance he might not have been able to tell you his name. I heard that there were some people found on the shore a little while ago? Are there any who haven’t woken up yet or that you don’t have names for?”
“For the most part, the washed up survivors are all awake and most have made full recoveries already. But there are a few that remain unconscious.”
Tifa slammed her hands on the desk, desperate. “Can I see them?!”
The woman didn’t flinch. “...You’re asking to visit our nameless patients? I’m sorry but I can’t let you do that without approval from the doctor first.”
“Aren’t you the doctor?” Yuffie asked, pointing at her badge.
“In training,” said Dr. Inbar, with a hint of frustration. “If you’d like, I can go fetch the head doctor for you.”
“Yes, please!”
Dr. Inbar disappeared behind a wall in the back, muttering to who must have been the primary doctor. A man in a white coat followed her out. He was a younger man with warm brown skin and a tired look.
Tifa met his eyes and they both reeled back in surprise.
“Tifa?!”
“Rakesh?!”
It was a face she never wanted to see again. Last she saw Rakesh, he and his mother, Dr. Dhamini Oranye had been caught red-handed after scamming her in Midgar. His mother had provided medical care for her after her injury from Sephiroth in Nibelheim, including skin grafts and physical therapy after being in a coma for a month. Tifa had unknowingly been asked to pay three times her actual bill’s cost.
The confrontation had been heated. Tifa and Barret had chased down Rakesh after he stole the one-hundred-and-sixty-thousand gil that she had saved up to use as a down payment on Seventh Heaven. It turned out, Rakesh had previously gambled all his mother’s savings away on Chocobo races, putting them in serious debt. Thus why they overcharged Tifa and their other patients.
When the truth came out about all the money they scammed her for, not to mention the extra money Rakesh just tried to steal from her, Tifa was furious. The final straw had been Rakesh foolishly choosing that moment to confess his love to her, hoping it would spare him. Tifa rewarded him with a swift kick to his nose.
And there it was. That crooked nose.
“W-what are you doing here!?” Rakesh cried fearfully.
“I could ask you the same. You’re the head doctor here? I thought you were a physician.”
Dr. Inbar was turned away at the front desk, but Tifa heard her gasp.
“N-No. I was a physician, yes, but I’m also a doctor, just like my mom was!”
Tifa eyed him suspiciously, but got distracted by his phrasing. “Wait…’was’?”
Rakesh sighed, his gaze falling to the floor. “Yeah…was. She…died a few months ago.”
Tifa put her hands over her mouth, suddenly feeling overcome with emotion. Dr. Dhamini Oranye and her son had scammed her, yes, but all Tifa could think about in that moment were the kind memories she had with her.
Waking up to her face after the incident in Nibelheim… Her holding Tifa while she sobbed after her first nightmare. Even the skin grafts, expensive though they were, were expertly done, leaving no trace of a scar.
“I…I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah… after everything went down in Midgar, word got around about uh…” Rakesh eyed Dr. Inbar out of the corner of his eye. “Anyways, we moved here and mom took over the clinic. But I guess even a doctor isn’t immune to a heart attack. So naturally, the clinic fell to me.”
“I see…”
“And you? What’s your story?”
“Oh!” Tifa was quickly snapped out of her thoughts. “We’re looking for someone! We think he might have ended up here at your clinic.”
“‘He’…?” Rakesh muttered, a sour look on his face.
“Could we check and see? He would probably be one of the patients you don’t have names for.”
Rakash seemed to be thinking something over. Tifa wondered if he was considering turning her and her friends away. He was clearly upset upon seeing her again and might still hold some past judges. If he did refuse her, Tifa decided ahead of time that she would not take no for an answer. She eyed his crooked nose.
In the end, Rakesh’s shoulders dropped and he walked past Tifa. “Come on,” he said brusquely.
Tifa knew better than to say anything more. She silently followed.
He took them through the main hallway and then into a large room where dividers split it into fourths. In the first bed was a big, burly man with black hair, eyes closed and breathing deeply through an oxygen mask.
“In here are our patients who are still unconscious. This man’s name is Brutus, as confirmed by his wife who has already recovered, but the other three are unidentified.”
Tifa began walking the span of the room before Rakesh finished speaking. Behind the first divider next to Brutus was…
A brown haired man with a shallow face.
Come on, please…
Behind the next one was…
A ginger boy with freckles. Perhaps the youngest person she has seen on the island so far. He must have been around her age.
Please, please, please.
And in the last bed was…
Please.
Tufts of blonde hair made Tifa’s heart leap. Her vision seemed to black out for a brief second in the panic as her heart skipped a beat. She felt like an earthquake had run through her.
She gasped loudly, before her breath caught.
No…
Blonde hair…on an old, frail woman.
Tifa scanned the woman multiple times, making sure her eyes weren’t tricking her. She checked every sign of life in her body for deceit. I’m dreaming. This isn’t real.
But the sight before her was irrefutable. And with it, came the earth-shattering statement she’d desperately been trying to avoid.
Cloud was gone.
A tight, painful lump formed in her throat, convulsing as she tried to swallow it. Sharp heartbeats stabbed like knives into her chest. Through her wide, burning eyes spilled hot, silent tears that flowed like waterfalls.
The others sorrowfully looked on as if she were a fragile, glass bird about to shatter. They braced themselves for the dam to break, but the outburst never came.
Instead, Tifa quietly walked over to Rakesh, bowing her head. The lack of air in her body made her speech small and strangled. “Thank you.”
Then she turned to her companions, offering the same bow. Her entire body trembled violently and she could barely manage to get her words out. “I’m so sorry, everyone,” she choked. “You were right.” She walked out of the clinic on shaking legs.
Tifa heard the footsteps of her friends behind her, but they dared not speak. Eyes unblinking, lips tugging downward, she walked past the giant tree in the center of the village, then the fortress where Isabel looked on sadly as she let them out, and miraculously, back onto the Highwind.
It was only when she made her way to the safety of her own room and the door closed behind her that her knees finally buckled and she collapsed onto the floor, a loud, grief-stricken sob tearing out of her with the force of a typhoon.
-
Hours later, Tifa lay curled up against her knees, still crying alone on her bed in the crew quarters. Everytime she felt like she had finally exhausted herself, the horrible thought occurred to her that she would never see Cloud again, and the tears returned.
The others elected to give her space as she grieved. The lack of sway from the ship meant they were still hovering about Mideel, as they were probably unsure where to go from here.
Tifa didn’t want to think about it. She didn’t want the Highwind to leave. She didn’t want to go anywhere. She didn’t want to be anywhere. She just wanted Cloud back. So, so bad…
A knock came on the door. Barret poked his head inside, his tone gentle.
“Hey…just wanted to check in on ya. How’re you doin’?”
Tifa hurried to sit herself up, looking away as she sniffled pitifully and wiped her puffy eyes.
“Right. Sorry, shoulda figured.” He sat next to Tifa on the bed, his gaze attentive and caring. He waited silently.
Tifa spent many more moments trying to get her breathing under control. She could feel the drained feeling of fatigue start to claim her, her body going slack when she leaned back against the headboard. Her temples throbbed with a dull headache.
She let out a deep breath, her voice coming out rough and broken. “I’m sorry, Barret.”
“Shh, Tifa, you have nothing to be sorry for. It’s ok.”
“I just don’t know why I’ve been acting like such a fool.”
“You’re not a fool. You kept pushin' forward cause you loved him.”
Tifa looked up wearily, surprised at his bold words.
“That is…we all did, ya know? We all miss him,” he said, carefully changing the wording to make her feel comfortable. But both of them knew the extent of Tifa’s feelings. “Hell…I’m actually surprised at myself how much I miss him…” His lip quivered as he zoned out towards the ground, stuck inside a memory. “Hmph, that dumbass. He was just a kid.”
Barret shook his head when the memory threatened to take over, exhaling deeply. “Look, what I’m tryna say is, take all the time you need to feel better. And after that, you can take your revenge on Sephiroth for what he did. We’ll make him pay for this.”
Tifa puffed a frustrated laugh, barely even trying to hide it. “Take all the time you need” was an inherently contradictory statement. They didn’t have time. They had weeks until meteor crashed down. That wasn’t enough time to fully grieve someone. Barret knew that. But he was still trying to get her to fight. To join the rest of them in their final push to save the planet.
Perhaps that’s what he thought she needed…revenge. It’s what drove him, after all. But Tifa wasn’t like Barret.
“I don’t think…I want to defeat Sephiroth,” she replied, numb and empty.
“Huh?”
“I want him to pay, to suffer, to die a thousand deaths for what he did, but… I just don’t have it in me to fight.”
Barret sighed. “I understand.”
“I’m sorry. I’m being selfish.”
“No you’re not. It’s ok to need to take care of yourself.”
“That’s not it. I don’t want to take care of myself. I don’t want to fight because if Cloud truly is gone, then I don’t care what happens to the planet!”
Barret frowned. “You don’t believe that.”
He was right. She didn’t. There were still too many good people left that were counting on them to combat the meteor. But if it were her and only her left on the planet, Tifa figured that maybe she would actually prefer the swift end…
She jolted, terrified by the sudden grimness of her thoughts. “What’s wrong with me? I was doing fine before Cloud came back into my life. I was still my own person. So why? Why can’t I stand on my own again now that he’s gone? It just feels like I died along with him–!” She gasped suddenly.
Oh my god. Tifa realized she just admitted it out loud. It made it feel so…real. A small, involuntary whine escaped her.
First her mother, then her father.
Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge…
Aerith.
And now Cloud, too was…
…he was…
“Soldier’s cells degrade. I think that’s what’s happening to me. That I’m…falling apart.”
“That’s not going to happen to you.” She took his hand. “You saved me before. Now it’s my turn.”
…dead.
Alarms suddenly started blaring over the loudspeakers. Red, emergency lights flashed overhead. Tifa and Barret jumped.
“What the—?!”
Cid’s voice came booming over the intercom. “Weapon sighted! There’s a Weapon approaching Mideel, and it’s coming in hot!”
Barret urgently stood up, rushing for the door but stopping just shy of it to look back at Tifa, eyes
wide. A silent question.
She hesitantly slouched off the bed, nodding to the floor and following him.
-
“What the hell is goin’ on?!” Barret shouted when he and Tifa reached the bridge. The others were all crowded around the Highwind’s monitors.
“It just came outta the sea!” said Nanaki.
“More like, came outta nowhere!” Yuffie cried.
Cid ushered Barret and Tifa forward and pointed to the monitors, which showed a large, white Weapon like the one that had swallowed up Tifa in Gongaga. Only this one was different. It wasn’t just bound to the water anymore, its long flippers seemed to have evolved into fully functional back legs, as it marched across the land.
Barret was horrified upon seeing the live footage, “Alright, so what’s the plan?! We can’t just let it flatten the village!”
“Looks like Shinra’s waaay ahead of you. They seem to be mobilizing down there.” Cid switched the monitor view to a different angle, zooming in on the fortress where countless soldiers were scrambling together. Tifa only noticed looking down from this angle that there was a tiny airstrip next to the fort where multiple fighter jets were stationed.
She walked over to the glass observation window, peering down to see it all for herself. From above, she was surprised to see that the Weapon was actually much further away from the village than her comrade’s concern suggested. In fact, it didn’t seem the least bit interested in the civilization. It was just…wandering. Or perhaps looking for something? It was difficult to tell exactly what its intent might be, but to Tifa, it seemed no more threatening than a grazing animal.
“Uhh, I dunno guys. It doesn’t really seem to be doing anything,” she said.
The Weapon lifted its head in the direction of the Highwind, stealing Tifa’s breath.
It was then that the Shinra forces surrounded it. The units on the ground wasted no time in unloading rounds of bullets into the creature while the fighter jets, now airborne, dropped a trail of heavy explosives over its head. The Weapon, suddenly overwhelmed by enemies and in pain, roared thunderously at the sky.
“It seems so…angry,” said Cait Sith.
Tifa nodded. “Yeah…angry,” she watched as it howled, alone and outnumbered. Something about it pulled at her heart. “…and sad.”
Barret squinted at the monitors. “I don’t get it. What’s it doing here of all places?”
“We can figure that out later,” said Vincent, spinning to leave the room. “We can’t let it reach the village.”
“Right!” Everyone agreed in unison, chasing after him. Tifa followed behind slowly.
By the time she made it to the outside deck, everyone was already donning their parachutes. She watched as Yuffie, Nanaki, Cait and Vincent all leapt off the edge without a moment’s hesitation. Cid seemed to forget about his ‘captain leaves last’ rule, for he, too, launched himself off the side, shouting, “Wait for me!”
Which just left Barret and Tifa. She rubbed her arm, avoiding his gaze, which she could feel burning holes into her. She didn’t care, though. She wasn’t going. Her exhaustion and grief weighed her down like a lead blanket and she wanted nothing more than to go back to her room. The others could fight without her. They didn’t need her.
…So then why wasn’t she leaving?
A bright red parachute entered her vision. She looked up to see Barret holding it out to her.
“Tifa,” he said softly. “I know you said that you don’t care about what happens to the planet, but we both know damn well that you’re the one who cares the most.”
Barret put a gentle hand on her head, his kind eyes peering into her soul. “I know you’re hurting right now, angel. I know you miss Cloud.”
A crystalline tear slipped down Tifa’s face as she leaned into his touch. Only now realizing how much she desperately needed comfort.
It wasn’t nearly long enough. He pulled back, now stepping to the edge of the deck and turning back to her.
“But I trust that heart of yours,” he smiled, then jumped, much more sure of himself than last time.
Tifa raced to the edge, looking down to see all her friends diving straight for the Mideel fortress. No doubt, Isabel was there, leading her troops to take down the Weapon. But the more attacks Shinra threw at it, the angrier it was becoming.
Tifa had a bad feeling in her gut. Shinra was just making things worse, like always. If they kept up the pressure, perhaps the Weapon really would go for the village. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that the Weapon wasn’t hostile. At least not at first.
She wondered if it was the same one that had taken her on her journey through the lifestream in Gongaga. Maybe that’s why she felt so connected to it.
She felt its pain and grief just as true as her own…
“Agh!!”
Tifa yelped with surprise as she suddenly entered freefall, the Highwind disappearing above her as she fell hundreds of meters at a time. Looking at her back, her parachute was properly fastened. She must have put it on and made the leap without her even realizing.
But why? Why did she jump? She didn’t want to fight the weapon, she had just lost Cloud. She was completely empty inside. Uncaring. Numb.
Hm.
Maybe that’s why…
Tifa briefly considered not pulling the chute.
And I could see him again…
Just as the thought entered her mind, memories of Cloud appeared, making her gasp.
That night in the garden at Aerith’s house…
Her sudden panic attack in the Nibelheim reactor…
The countless times when he’d saved her in the heat of battle…
Cloud always worked so hard to protect her. To keep her safe. It was important to him that she felt supported and comforted. And even though he thought himself to be quite bad at giving that kind of affection away, Tifa had always felt better because of it.
To give up now…she just couldn’t. All he had worked for would be for nothing and Tifa would be throwing away the thing that was the most important to him in life.
…Her.
Tifa pulled the cord of her parachute, angling towards the Mideel fortress. Barret’s words rang in her head. “But I trust that heart of yours!”
Ah. So that’s why she jumped. Barret was right. Whether she was driven by a desire to protect the villagers or the Weapon itself, Tifa’s heart would not, could not, stand idly by and let innocents get killed.
She silently thanked Cloud. Just the thought of him had been enough to make her pull her chute, and remember her focus.
It seemed he had protected her one last time.