Paper Tiger Burning

I respectfully credit all Original Creators, namely Squaresoft, which became SquareEnix,for these characters. In this way, I pay homage to my Fandom's Original Creator, and illustrate my Community's belief that Fan Fiction is "fair use". I do not claim to own these characters. I do not make money or gil from using these protected characters, nor do I wish to make money or gil from them. In other words, I am borrowing these characters to entertain the adult fanfiction community, but I am doing so with the highest degree of respect to the engineers, game designers, music makers, and voice actors.



He hit me so hard I smashed through three layers of the building before stopping. “This is just the warm-up,” he crowed, laying into me before I’d even fully stopped moving. His fists came fast. I blocked three of his six blows, sweeping a leg out and taking him off his feet. Cloud twisted in mid-fall, managing to land on all fours instead of flat on his skinny ass. I kicked upward and knocked the breath out of him.

“Cocky little bitch, aren’t you?” He fought me like he had a vendetta. At last, someone who could provide a real challenge. If only he hadn’t insisted on leaving our weapons at the starting point. Instinct told me he knew how to use that oversized, modified Buster. But I’d gone along with his stipulation; I wanted to fight badly enough to leave the Masamune behind.

“You taught me everything I know about cocky,” Cloud wheezed, grabbing my leg by the hem of my pants. With a tug he sent me flying toward the hole I’d made on entry, pushing off the rear wall to bullet alongside me. He caught me by the back of the head, his fist clenching in my hair.

I saw what he meant to do just in time. This time it was I who twisted, using his own velocity to smash him against the reinforced cinderblock. I mashed him into it with my body, hearing him grunt. He kicked out and hit me in the balls.

Again I dropped, my body in agony. As soon as I hit the crumbling floor I vomited. Cloud pushed my face in it with his boot. I grabbed his foot and shoved backward.

A loose I-beam collapsed upon us, sending us plummeting through countless floors of the ruined building. The shock of cold, stagnant water and absolute dark stopped our fight.

“This basement’s flooded with old rainwater,” Cloud gasped, his breath taken by the shock of a freezing water bath. “Let’s get out of here. If the building falls, we’ll drown.”

I saw absolutely no flaw in his reasoning or his plan. We launched out nearly at the same time, zooming toward the distant light in our ceiling. Catching the lip at the same time, our combined shockwaves caused the structure to groan ominously.

“That’s our cue,” Cloud shouted, grabbing me. He used me for a battering ram out the side, obliterating the walls in our way. I caught a double lungful of dust and hacked, ignoring the pain in my back.

No one could breathe with cement in their lungs.

The moment we burst through, Cloud began punching me. I took the first seven hits passively, trying to get my bearings and my breath, but then I felt rage grip me. This insolent little…whelp!

I grappled with him, turning us in the freefall until he was under me. Seeing red, I drew back and hit him as hard as I could right in the solar plexus. All the air whooshed from his lungs. His blue eyes bulged. Gasping like a beached fish, he cuffed me in the head, clipping my temple. “Dirty fighting son of a bitch!” he managed to say. We spun, crashing through a thick potion of ruined pavement.

“Always a dirty, underhanded, slum-fighter!” he went on, his wheezing taking on the tone of complaint. “Sneaky, deceitful, low!”

“Shut your goddamn mouth,” I growled. “Less talk, more hit!” This felt really familiar now. In fact, he was starting to look really familiar too. The more pain he gave me the better I felt. We were only an hour into our fight and I already experienced a better handle on myself.

Cloud threw me with his legs, sending me sailing into a steel framework. It collapsed, huge beams buffeting me all the way to the ground four stories below. I landed on a pile of rubble, a beam falling on my leg. I heard the bone snap, watched it push through my pant leg. Gritting my teeth, I shoved it back below the rent flesh, feeling it align. But he was on me again before it could completely fuse.

Utter wrath claimed me. I drew back, laying into him with both fists. Cloud Strife. I knew him now. He was the upstart who dared throw my bleeding, skewered body into the Lifestream. He’d defeated me again and again with his high-handed morals and cursed luck. I would crush him. I didn’t need the Masamune to do it.

Blood sprayed. Cloud blocked several of my hits, even the ones that broke his arms. Grinning like a maniac, he climbed up out of the hole we’d made and tackled me, slamming into me with his right shoulder so hard I puked. In a fury I returned the favor, watching him throw his last meal all over the blasted concrete. He promptly rolled me into the only patch of mud for miles and thrust my head under.

I grabbed for purchase, finding a loose chunk of broken asphalt. Bringing it up, I clocked him in the side of his spiky blond head. But the momentum of my blow overbalanced me. We tumbled for what seemed an eternity before landing hard in a tangle of limbs, rusted metal, rubble and wiring. A coil dug into my side. I rolled only to find Cloud on my back. He kidney-punched me five times before I threw him off.

“Some kind of brawler you are,” he panted, staggering toward me. “Without that sword you’re a pansy-ass.”

“You shut the fuck up,” I wheezed, trying to get air back in my concrete-coated, stressed lungs. I spat a chunk of stone, certain it had formed inside me rather than outside. “Without your AVALANCHE cheering squad you fight like a middle school Capra player.”

We both dived for each other simultaneously. Our heads cracked together. I saw stars. Reeling, I cast a desperate eye around for Cloud’s whereabouts. He staggered in a left handed circle, one hand on his head and the other outstretched, trying to find a brace. Blood ran into my eyes. I wiped it away quickly, but not in enough time to see him coming.

Cloud tackled me. We bounced, hitting stone and jagged support beams on such a severe slant that our clothing tore. Over and over we tumbled, eventually having to grab each other just to figure out where the other was. The world flipped again and again and again until suddenly we stopped. We stopped so fast and so hard we dented the roadway, making a pit taller than me. I stared up into the whirling sky, wondering just what we were fighting about. I couldn’t remember now.

Cloud’s grinning, bloody face appeared in my vision. I started to lurch up to the attack, but stopped. Really, what were we fighting about? My flower girl wouldn’t like this, not one bit.

“Congratulations, General Devastation,” Cloud said, holding out his hand to me. “You’ve made it back to present day.”

My head swimming, I made a desperate grab for his palm and missed. “I’m concussed,” I admitted. My thoughts came slowly but my voluntary impulses even slower than that.

“It’s no issue,” a dark, rumbling voice said. Cloud and I turned our heads to see Vincent Valentine standing above us, his red cloak dripping down into the hole we’d made. He leaned in, grabbed Cloud by his shoulder and hauled him out, ignoring his protests. In another moment he stood with me at the bottom of the pit. “Take my hand,” he ordered.

He brought his gloved fingers close enough to my divided vision. I grabbed and made contact. Valentine pulled. Before I could assimilate it he had me on his shoulder. He flexed, taking us out of the indention. He dumped me beside a bleeding, confused-looking Cloud without ceremony. “You both had Aerith worried,” he growled, pulling a small black box from his pocket. Keying in a sequence, he favored us both with a red, stern stare. “I hope this is finished?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. And I really didn’t. I couldn’t remember how I’d gotten here, why Cloud and I were fighting or... Actually, I couldn’t remember anything past the decontamination room at the compound.

“So, it is finished,” Valentine replied. As he spoke a helicopter flew over us and began to touch down. “I’ll take General Sephiroth back, Cloud,” he said, his words brooking no argument. “You can ride with us as far as Midgar Proper, if you like.”

“I might have to.” Cloud rolled over and spat out a tooth. “Fuck-all, he’s as rough as he ever was, if not worse. He can take a hell of a beating.”

“His body isn’t as old,” Valentine replied, monotone. “Get in the chopper.”

We staggered inside the whirlybird. Valentine got behind the controls, his calm, smooth features not moving at all as his eyes took in the controls. “Your sword is behind me,” he told Cloud. He looked at me. “Yours, of course, goes where you want it to go.”

Cloud and I exchanged glances. “What did I do?” I asked, desperate to know what was going on.

Cloud shrugged. “You forgot when you were, that’s all,” he answered. “I helped you remember.” He paused to grin. “You’re welcome.”