Answers

DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of these characters, and probably wouldn't even retain the rights to a concept sketch I have drawn of Yuffie for future chapters (you'll see...) after a lengthy court battle which I could not afford. All characters, settings, and such are property of Square Soft and by extension Square-Enix. I'm just borrowing them for a bit o' fun, so come along and enjoy the ride.

It was all over in the flash of a blade. Vendettas were settled, crusades were finished, answers were found. But the answers that were found were far outnumbered by the questions that remained.

Shortly after the group defeated Sephiroth- or at least his latest incarnation- his body had suddenly vanished. The party was dumbfounded.

“…All right, everyone. It's no use thinking about it. We'll leave all our
worries here. Let's go home proud,” he said.

Cloud and Tifa exchanged a few meaningless words… Cloud seemed mad for much more than a moment… he spoke of Sephiroth still being alive, but they deafeated him… it couldn’t be.

“He’s laughing…”

And then they noticed the rift in the planet open up, sucking Cloud down and out of Tifa’s reach, leaving her sobbing on the ground. She was clutching air as if there were a solid form there, but there was nothing. And that was when the rest of the party noticed.

Cloud was gone.

In the heat of the battle everyone had rushed to defeat this enemies of enemies, but Tifa had fallen back when Cloud received a particularly bad wound, and after the battle was done, had stayed at his side, but now he was gone every bit as mysteriously as Sephiroth.

Yuffie sprinted over towards Tifa, kneeling down beside her before pulling her into her arms in an effort to comfort her.

“Don’t worry Tifa…” Yuffie soothed, brushing the girl’s hair so as to remove it from her teary eyes, “You know Cloud… he survived the lifestream once, he’ll do it again. Don’t worry…”

“But-“ Tifa started.

“No! Calm down, gather your head” she cooed, with an air of urgency about her, as her senses snapped back, allowing her to notice the rift in the planet growing, “We’ll wait for him, just keep your ground.”

Tifa’s eyes had cleared a bit as she nodded with a snivel, the two backed up although they remained crouched. As soon as they had reached safe ground, Tifa then turned her head towards the sky as if to question the very heavens as to why this had happened. To be so close to victory, and to lose.

Or did they win?

Yuffie gave Tifa a squeeze, and turned her head up to ask the exact same question…

***

Not too long later, Cloud re-emerged with bloodstained hands that had just a hint of a blue sparkle in the crimson red as he rocketed out of the lifestream towards Tifa’s waiting, outstretched hand. A hint of mako infusion intermingling with the blood which none knew the origins of...

Tifa was so overcome with happiness to see him again she couldn’t have cared less about the blood on his hands. She pulled him up out of the lifestream as the planet corroded beneath them. The two embraced briefly, Cloud’s bloodied hands staining the back of Tifa’s pure white attire before conciousness fully returned to Cloud and they all dashed off to avoid certain death.

***

The Highwind, or at least the underbelly of the Highwind, came to rest in Kalm shortly after the rages of Holy and Meteor’s collision course. The crew departed the ship to make a quick damage report and decide where to go and what to do from there.

Questions had been answered, but many more had been raised. Problems had been solved, but many more had been created. To most of the party this didn’t matter at the moment though. Their toughest battle was through. Now there was just cleaning up and getting back to life.

Life, what an odd concept.

To Tifa the embrace lasted forever and only a moment, as Cloud broke away, hurrying right towards those unanswered questions, forgetting to revel in the glorious bliss that they had created and those few questions that they had answered. Not even few questions, many questions.

Tifa made again to hug him again, now that the coast was clear, but Cloud pushed her away.

“There’s no time for that,” he said, “Not when Aeris could still be out there,” (these were the words that stung Tifa the most.)

He continued uninterrupted, “Not when I still don’t know who I am… who Zack is… about Holy… about the Ancients… what the Turks plan to do… Shinra… Meteor… The Promised Land… what happened to everyone hit by it…There’s still so much to do.”

Tifa’s head immediately sunk to the floor as she frowned, using her long, flowing black hair to cover her teary eyes and the sad frown that had replaced the once joyful smile.

Yuffie took a few steps forward as if to defend her crestfallen friend, but considered the emotional gravity of the current situation and kept her advance to those few steps, and settled herself to look upon Tifa with an expression of concern.

Cid took the opportunity to throw down his half-smoked cigarette in anger and crush it under foot, “Now wait just a fuckin’ minute hear you blonde spikey-haired-“

Tifa looked back up at Cloud as her expression of sadness turned to one of anger, as one of her well-trained brawler’s fists flung out, connecting with a blow to Cloud’s chest, effectively knocking him to the floor without air supply, “You jerk!”

Cloud looked up at the enraged woman and wheezed with a wince, “Tifa…”

“Is that it!? We finish our battle and stop Sephiroth and all you can say is ‘we’re not done yet’? Well forget it! If she was all that mattered to you then I’ve found my answers, I found all my answers. I don’t need to help you find yours! Aeris is dead Cloud! You saw it. The only Promised Land is the land after death! We can’t even have one little victory before you need to find all your answers… That’s it… I hope you find your Promised Land and you and Aeris can be happy there, but count me OUT!”

Before he even gather the air to answer, Tifa stormed away, dogged soon thereafter by a sprinting Yuffie, who before departing shot Cloud a glare she was certain he couldn’t see for his own well-deserved guilt, as she raced off after the brawler.

Cloud finally moved to go after them as well, clutching his blow, but Vincent flung out an arm to stop him, causing Cloud to hit his wound again. “Let them go. We’ll regroup at the Midgar’s ground zero and see if they’re there… either way, we decide where to go from here. If they’re not, well then it’s your own call whether or not to go after her.”

Cloud and the others nodded in agreement and set off out of Kalm, for the ruins of the city where their adventure began.

***

About an hour or two later when they arrived at the Midgar wreckage, there was no sight of Tifa or Yuffie.
Cid removed another cigarette from his jacket and lit it with a small gold lighter, taking a long drag before he spat out the smoke he just inhaled as he spoke, “So they’re not here, huh? As if a girl like Tifa would actually wait around that long for you ya scrawny asshole.”

Cloud said nothing, which prompted Cid to laugh, “Figures. Anyway, boys, welcome to the beginning of your new lives… I’ll tell ya right now I’ll give you free passage to wherever you want, but after that my contract as your ‘blame all the shit on’ pilot is through.

“…So what’s it going to be for everyone?”

“Nibelheim,” Vincent said, very concisely and without explanation as usual, although to everyone else who had adventured with him, it had been fairly apparent that it was Vincent’s intention to return to his punishment in the Nibelheim coffin whenever his score with Hojo had been settled, “I hope not to see any of you anytime soon…”

Cid forced a chuckle.

“Next..?” said the airship captain, taking another drag on his cigarette.

The cat atop Cait Sith raised its megaphone to its mouth and began to speak, “Don’t worry about this model… it wasn’t worth shit in the first place. Once you’re all far away from here, I’ll have it self destruct. I have much more pressing matters now… By the way, don’t worry too much about the state of Midgar, I’ll make sure to fully repair it, without mako power or reactors or anything.”

Barret smiled at the lifeless form, and the others could’ve sworn Red XIII did too.

Barret spoke up, “That’s good of ya, Marlene ‘n’ me ‘n’ the others thank ya. Please if ya can, save tha’ hideout… It’s dear ta me ‘n’ Tifa ‘n’ Marlene,” he gave Cloud a look of disgust as he spoke the name “Tifa”.

The pilot flicked his smoke, causing ashes to fly down at the ground with a nod, “Alright then, big man, what about you?”

“Me?” Barret said with mild disinterest, “Uhh… well I need ya to take me back ta Kalm to see Marlene and Elmyra. From there we’ll make our way back here and help best we can…”

“Touching,” Cid remarked coldly as he dropped his item, crushing it underfoot, “What about fuzzy and spiky?”

“Cosmo Canyon if you would,” Red XIII kindly noted, ignoring the mild insult, “Although I don’t suspect I’ll be there long. But a celebration is long overdue, wouldn’t you say… If any of you happen to see any of my kind, please find me… as I will be trying to find them. I’m sure you remember Hojo telling you my species was endangered, and this isn’t untrue.”

Before Cid could chime in with what was a certain opportunity for a hearless quip, Cloud answered the question he undoubtedly knew would come his way.

“Leave me here. Where we began is as good a spot as any to find answers…”

Cid huffed, “No passage for ladykillers anyway.”

Barret added, “Ever do sumthin’ like tha’ ta Tifa again ‘n’ so help me…” he raised his gun arm to point at Cloud’s face.

“I don’t care,” Cloud said coolly, “I’ve got to find Aeris… and my answers.”

“Ya jus’ dun get it…” said the grizzled AVALANCHE leader.

Cloud made one of his trademark shrugs and walked off to find his answers as the rest of AVALANCHE boarded the remnant of the Highwind and set off for their respective destinations… thus ending their long-term journey and crusade.

The group aboard the Highwind had found their answers… but others still yearned for more.

Author's note: Well... I hope you enjoyed the prologue chapter, I know it's not what you came here to see, but it's the set up for the later chapters, and I don't exactly like writing PWP. I do promise it'll get spicier soon. Leave a review and tell me what you think, or what you think I need to do/change! Also note, this is a barely finalized draft, so I will be reviewing it and editing as I see fit.