Promises of Loyalty

Chapter 8 - Love is a Battlefield

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Tifa stirred from sleep and unconsciously shifted closer to the other person in bed with her. Coming slowly out of the sleepy haze, she realized that she wasn't in her own room. Before the panic could set in, the other person in the bed turned to face her, strands of black hair tickling her nose as a strong arm wrapped around her waist and pulled her closer. She blinked the sleep from her eyes and realized she was in bed with Zack in the ShinRa barracks, only this time completely under her own free will.

She slowly removed his arm and wiggled out from under the covers, trying to extract herself from the bed without waking him. As she stood, the dull aches in her various muscles reminded her of the various 'exams' she took the night prior. After her 'mid-term' Zack had opted for a final about an hour later, and then in the early hours of the morning, decided she needed a re-test. If there was one thing you could say for ShinRa, they made sure their men had plenty of stamina.

Her uniform was strewn about in various directions: the shirt having been ripped halfway down the back was now dangling from his bedside lamp, her bra and skirt were crumpled on the floor, the zipper of the latter now broken from its track. Holding the ruined garments in her hands, she knew that was one little fantasy he wasn't going to be living out again any time soon. Luckily her undergarments had remained in one piece and she slipped them on to continue her search for something suitable to wear. Rifling through the closet produced a pair of his shorts which fit well enough after a few tugs to the drawstrings and a knot or two. She also located a clean undershirt, which hung low and baggy, but at least covered her up for her eventual exodus from the building.

Unaware that her wardrobe-related antics were being watched, Tifa finished pulling her hair back into a ponytail. She turned to find Zack propped up on an elbow, grinning sleepily as he watched her from the bed.

"Mornin' sunshine...nice outfit," he mumbled.

She smirked and tossed her crumpled skirt at his head. "Yeah, well it's your fault I can't wear any of my clothes. Guess you won't be getting your little schoolgirl fantasy again."

He laughed and tossed the skirt to the end of the bed before getting up to find some clothing of his own. His back was still scored with pinkish-white lines where her nails had kissed his skin, small red circles dotted his neck and collar bones with a rather brazen bite mark just inside his inner left thigh. As Zack pulled a pair of boxers on he caught sight of her little memento and smirked, "Looks like I'll have a couple of new battle scars to explain in the showers next time."

Tifa flushed crimson at that statement and he couldn't help but laugh. Teasing her was almost as enjoyable as the fighting and sex. Well, truth be told, the former was nowhere near the latter, but it all added up to a pleasurable mix that kept Zack returning to the brunette terrorist's company so often.

"So, if that school girl outfit REALLY helped get me in here, what's going to help me get out? Nurse's outfit? Dominatrix?"

The self-satisfied grin on her face let Zack know that she was more than enjoying pointing out his penchant for girls in uniforms. Not one to be outdone, he finished dressing and decided to fire her up a little more.

"Oh that? I'll tell you right now, the outfit did more harm than it did good. I had already bribed the guards a day ahead of time to not say a word about me bringing a girl in. The trainees in the yard? They're too afraid of the Class A SOLDIERs to rat on them, so all you did was provide some eye candy for the night. Really, that outfit was all for my benefit."

His exposition was concluded as he laced up the last of his boots and strapped his sword to his back. Tifa's mouth hung open, unbelieving that she had fallen for such a set-up. But before she could protest, yell, or anything else, he leaned in and kissed her.

"Training time," he said coolly, as if this morning was any different from the rest. "Follow me, we're going to go throw a few punches in the yard, see if you've gotten any better."

She started to protest again, ready to cite every reason from improper attire to the fact that she'd hardly be allowed into SOLDIER training grounds as a civilian...but she stopped herself short, knowing by then that Zack wouldn't take any sort of excuses and just find some way around everything. Her hand reached out and grabbed for his wrist before she was left behind, the materia bracelet she still had from their last battle rolling around loosely on her wrist, forgotten during the previous night.

The back training grounds were off limits to nearly the entire ShinRa company except the upper classed SOLDIERs. With land scarce as it was in Midgar, an area of their size being used just as empty space was a huge waste of money, until one considered it provided the best testing zone for the materia experiments and training that SOLDIERs undertook. The ground was barren and cracked, nothing grew there anymore, much like the rest of Sector 7, and the excessive use of terrain-altering materia probably didn't help matters much.

Zack swiped his card key and allowed them access into a fenced area that was roughly three times the size of Tifa's bar, making it the most spacious area they would contend in so far. He walked to the opposite end of the field and imbedded his sword into the ground near the fence so he could begin to stretch out. He looked up to see her standing there, a bit bewildered,

"You're not gonna stretch before a sparring match? Tsk tsk...I thought you were more experienced than that."

She shook her head, clearing her thoughts, and then realized he was serious about having a sparring match, on ShinRa property, with a wanted terrorist he had granted access to. But as absurd as it was, the fighting spirit in her blood urged her to comply. Smirking a bit, she raised her arms over her head and stretched out her back. She leaned one leg out and stretched sideways down to touch her ankle, then moved to copy the motion on the other side, noticing he was watching her. With her other leg stretched out now, instead of leaning down she dashed sideways, running at him full force with a right hook aimed for his jaw.

The surprise attack caught him completely off guard and his head snapped up with a crack, the force of the blow lifting him off the ground and falling back a few feet. He twisted his body forward to land shakily on his feet, hunched slightly over as he regained his senses. A hand came up to rub at his jaw, the other resting on his knee to brace himself as he caught his breath,

"Damn lucky...normal person would've been knocked out cold by that..."

Suddenly he rushed forward and tucked himself down into a roll, slipping between her braced legs and spinning back around to snap up quickly and plant a booted foot to the middle of her back. Tifa flew through the air face first, the cracked ground coming way too fast toward her face for her liking. Her arms shot out in front of her, palms scraping roughly against the clay terrain as her momentum was stopped by her hands. She shifted her direction up and flipped into the air, landing on her feet with her back to her opponent. Pivoting on her left foot, she swung her right out and around counter-clockwise, lowering it enough to catch his ankles.

Zack had anticipated this move and lifted his left foot to avoid her retaliation, snapping it back down as her foot passed between his own. With her right foot now trapped between his ankles, he leaned back, using his legs to flip her upwards into the air. As he released his entrapment of her leg and sent her flying, he continued the motion and flipped his legs back over his head, standing once more and making a dash for her landing spot.

The sound of the rough scrape of boots on dirt was followed by a sickening crack as Zack's knee came right between Tifa's back and the ground. She grunted as the wind left her lungs with the impact and she rolled off to land at his feet, gasping for breath.

"Not...fair..." she panted, propping herself up on her forearms. Suddenly she twisted her body toward him and grabbed his shoulders. Placing her feet directly on his torso, she shoved at him hard, flipping him over her head and toward the wall of the yard. He slammed hard into the chain link fence, landing nearly on his head as he slid to the ground. After righting himself, he grinned and held up his right hand in a fist, his left going to touch a piece of materia and activate it...only his fingertips met bare flesh.

Meanwhile, Tifa had stood back up and watched as he tried to make use of the very bracelet she was still in possession of. As he registered his missing accessory, she made her move, dashing toward him and grabbing his naked wrist, pinning it to his back as she skidded to a halt behind him.

"Not as prepared without your little tricks, are you?" she whispered in his ear.

He tipped his head back, letting her lips brush his ear as she taunted him. Not to be outdone, he turned to the side and caught her lips in a bruising kiss, slipping his tongue forcefully into her mouth to distract her as his ankle swept back and kicked her feet out from under her.

"I think I've still got a few tricks left, with or without materia!" he gloated as she crumpled to the ground, allowing him to pull back and rub the soreness out of his wrist and shoulder, which had been put in a rather unnatural position moments earlier.

Tifa scrambled up and dashed back to give herself some distance in case he attacked again. She smirked at him, still feeling the tingle on her parted lips,

"Oh, so we're going to play dirty, are we? Let's see..."

She held the bracelet up to the sky, letting the sunlight reflect off the small marbles imbedded within. Her fingers traced along the slots until they landed on one of the green orbs, her thumb circling over it lightly,

"what does THIS one do?"

Her palm was held out toward him as a burst of flame erupted from her fingertips, heading straight toward Zack, who knew full well which materia she had just activated. He turned quickly, dashing away from the small flame as it broke apart into hundreds of tiny flames, spreading rapidly and growing. As they pummeled the ground, huge craters formed, catching up to his heels until the ground erupted beneath him in a shower of fire and rock, sending him flying into the fence once more.

As the smoke cleared, he saw Tifa looking a bit bewildered at the spell she had just cast. He chuckled, knowing that she had no clue how to use the full powers at her command and grabbed his sword to show her how it was done.

"Flare, huh? Well two can play at that game..." he shouted, swinging his sword around. Zack leapt into the air, doing a double flip before slamming the weapon into the ground, a wave of earth breaking up from before his feet and slamming into her as he cast Quake.

Huge pillars of rock jutted up toward her and she had to maneuver herself backwards to avoid being impaled. It took a few fancy flips and twists to avoid the brunt of the damage, only having one small run in that cost her a nasty gash on her ankle. She skidded to a halt once the ground stopped moving, placing her hands on her knees and bending over to catch her breath as she glared at the massive spikes of rock between them.

"That's overkill! I don't even know how to use this thing!"

"Obviously," Zack laughed, "so does that mean you surrender?"

Tifa sat down on the ground, tearing a strip of cloth from the bottom of her shirt to wrap around her bleeding ankle.

"Promise you'll teach me about this thing and we've got a deal." She winced in pain as she finished the knot, the white cloth already starting to stain through red. "Wouldn't have tried that if I knew you could do it with your sword, too..."

"Materia can be placed on any weapon or accessory," Zack said as he walked over to her, unclipping the bracelet from her wrist and putting it back on his own. "I think I'll be taking this back before you cause any more trouble. Don't worry, you'll get it back at the end of the school year," he teased, offering a hand to help her up.

She swatted his hand away and went to get up on her own power, but her ankle wobbled and she nearly fell back down until he caught her around the waist. He hoisted her onto her feet, placing her arm around his shoulders as his other arm circled her hip.

"Let's go back inside and I'll give your first lesson on materia."

As she limped with him from the newly rearranged training ground, she looked back at the destruction they had caused, "Are you gonna get in trouble for this?"

He shook his head, "Nah, this is nothing compared to how bad it can get when two SOLDIERs go at it full force, especially if one's got a vendetta against the other. They'll just send a lackey out here later to cast a bunch of minor quake spells and rearrange the ground back to level state."

They made it back inside to Zack's room once more, where he deposited Tifa on the bed and grabbed a towel. After soaking it in warm water from the sink, he removed her makeshift bandage and wiped away the blood and dirt from the gash.

"Now this," he held up his bracelet and pointed to one of the green marbles imbedded within the metal, "is restore materia. All you have to do is touch it to activate it and then press your hand to the injured area. My set is pretty powerful, it'll take care of bruising, surface wounds, and broken bones. Some of the really high-level stuff will even take care of internal ruptures or continuously repair damage. And rumor has it that there's a type called 'revive' that can actually reverse death."

He rambled on about different pieces, what they did, and how they worked as he pressed his palm lightly to all the areas he had hit on her body. She had flipped onto her back as he rubbed his hands gently where he had both kicked and kneed her, the warm green glow seeping into her bruised spine and muscles. With her head resting on her arms, she almost fell asleep as the soothing warmth penetrated her body until Zack nudged her awake and handed her the bracelet.

"My turn?" he asked innocently, a sheepish grin on his face.

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To be continued in Chapter 9 – A Return to Routine