Final Fantasy VII: Chapter 8

Chapter 8

     The long hallway on floor 67 led past the studies of Professor Hojo’s assistants to a small cell block.  The doors were solid and windowless, so they were unable to see whether the other cells were occupied or not as they were led past.  They were unbound and pushed into a cell one at a time, Cloud and Tifa in the second cell, Barret and Red XIII in the third.  The rooms were sparse, with one fold up cot, a toilet, and a sink each.
     Tifa wandered vaguely over to the cot, pulling it down from the wall and sitting on it, letting her feet swing.  Cloud leaned against the locked door, slamming his fist back against it in pent up frustration.
     “Hey,” Tifa asked in a undertone.  “Do you think we can get out of here?”
     “It’s not going to be easy,” he frowned, and she turned her face away in disappointment.  “Hey!  What did I say that sounded like, ‘give up’?” he demanded.  Tifa looked back up in surprise.  “It might not be easy, but when has that ever stopped me from doin’ something?”
     Tifa giggled.  “Not very often.  You’re kind of stupid that way,” she grinned at him affectionately.
     “Thanks,” he shot back sarcastically.
     “I’m glad you have a plan,” she admitted, laying back on the cot with her arms tucked under her head, her ankles crossed.  “I don’t have any idea what to do in this kind of situation.”
     “I wonder how Barret’s doing,” Cloud mused.  “He’s never struck me as one to take something like this calmly.”
     “You might be surprised,” Tifa told him.  “He never use to be so irritable before you showed up.  I think he sees you as competition, for leader of our little group.”
     “Leader?” Cloud wrinkled his nose in distaste.  “I don’t want to be anyone’s leader.”
     “But all the same, people want to follow you,” she pointed out.  “I know I want to.”
     “Why?” he asked her, honestly.
     “Because,” she hesitated.  “You kind of inspire confidence, don’t you?  You’re so sure of where you are going, and what you are doing, and what your interests are.  You’re good at planning, and good at fighting-”
     “Yeah, this plan sure went off without a hitch,” he sulked.
     “Oh, come one!”  Tifa snapped at him, half sitting and turning to face him.  “Just look what we tried to do!  We broke into the Shinra Building!  We made it all the way up and we almost got away with it too.”  She regarded him with a cryptic smile.  “I get the feeling that, if you hadn’t been trying to protect Aeris and me, you would have fought the Turks back there.  And you just might have beaten them too.”
     “Not likely,” he admitted.  “I only beat Reno because he was so green, and he was alone.  The Turks are a highly skilled unit, and teamwork is one of their strongest elements.  In SOLDIER, we were trained to be stand-alone fighters, even when we attacked in numbers we didn’t fight as a team, unless we faced one really strong opponent, and then it was still just trying not to hit the others.  I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I suck at fighting as part of a team.”
     “I had noticed,” she admitted.  “Though you are getting better at it.”
     Suddenly, through the wall across from Tifa, they heard a feint voice.  “Cloud, is that you?” Aeris called.  “Tifa?”
     “Aeris!” Cloud exclaimed jubilantly, walking over to the wall and leaning his ear against it to hear her better.  “Are you all right?”
     “I’m fine,” Aeris replied, moving closer to his voice.  “Tseng never tries to hurt me.”  There was a moment of silence, then she admitted, both sad and happy, “I knew that you would come for me.”
     “Hey, I’m your bodyguard, right?” he reminded her with a warm smile.  “If I don’t save you, I’ll never get paid, right?” he teased.
     She giggled.  “The deal was for one date, right?”
     “Oh, I get it,” Tifa laughed.  “Cloud, you ass.  Is that why you’re here?”
     Aeris giggled again.  “Is that Tifa in there grumbling?  I can’t hear very well.  Tifa?” she called louder.
     Tifa walked over to the wall beside Cloud.  “Yes?”
     “I wanted to thank you again, for everything,” Aeris told her.  “I’ve never had a real girl friend before.  I’m really glad I met you.”
     Tifa smiled in spite of herself, the honest joy in the other woman’s voice contagious.  “I am too,” she admitted.  “I’m just sorry we didn’t get you out the first try.”
     “That would have been easier, huh?” Aeris giggled.  “I’m going to see if I can’t get you all out of this.  I’m the only one they want, and they can’t do much without my cooperation.”
     “There’s no way we’re gonna leave you here,” Cloud told her vehemently.
     There was no response.
     “Aeris?” Tifa called, worried.
     “What?” Aeris responded.  There was a slight catch in her voice, like she was crying.
     “Does the Promised Land really exist?” she asked, searching for a question that wasn’t “why are you crying.”
     “I don’t know,” Aeris replied uncertainly.  “All I know is what my mother told me.  The Cetra were born from the planet, speak with the Planet, nurture the Planet, and then,” she hesitated, as though trying to decide how to phrase it best.  “The Cetra will return to the place of supreme happiness.”
     “What does that mean?”  Tifa sounded lost, and embarrassed by that.
     “I’m not sure how to say it,” Aeris admitted.  “It’s more a feeling than an actual thought.  Places have a tone to them, and some places you just like being, and others you just want to leave, or try to fix the bad feeling.  The Church always made me happy, but there is another place, someplace I have never been, but I know I need to go.”
     “You said you speak with the Planet,” Cloud mused.
     “What does the Planet say?” Tifa continued his thought.
     “There are so many people, and so much noise.  I can’t make out what it is saying clearly.”
     Cloud frowned thoughtfully.  The lights overhead were buzzing, and the walls were full of the small incidental sounds of pipes and wires and wood settling.  The guard in the hall was pacing.  He couldn’t discern the familiar hum of the whispering voices at the back of his own mind, over the other noises.  “Do you hear it now?” he asked her.
     “No,” she replied automatically.  “I only really heard it at the church in the slums.  Sometimes when I’m asleep.  Mother, my real mother, told me that Midgar was no longer safe.”  Her voice faded a little, she was moving away from the wall.  “Someday, I’ll get out of Midgar, Speak with the Planet, and find my Promised Land.  That’s what mom said.”  She sounded so sad.  “I thought I would stop hearing her voice as I grew up, but . . .”
     Whether she had just stopped speaking, or moved too far away, neither Cloud nor Tifa could tell.  Tifa looked up at him, but his eyes were distant, lost in thought.
     “Cloud?” she touched is arm gently.
     He shook his head and looked at her.  “Huh?”
     “You all right?  Your head’s not bothering you?” she asked softly, trying not to sound nagging.
     “No, I’m fine,” he replied vaguely.  “I mean it, this time,” he pointed out more brightly.  “I’m not really sure why it happens, but-” he hesitated, his brow furrowing.  “I think is has something to do with Him.”
     “Sephiroth,” she stated.
     Cloud just nodded.
     “We should sleep,” Tifa prompted with a sad sigh.
     “Yeah,”  Cloud agreed, gesturing to the bed.  “Go ahead.”  He leaned back against the wall, sliding down it until he sat, leaning forward against his knees.  Tifa hit the light switch, and pulled the cot back down.
     Cloud’s open eyes glowed in the darkness, interrupted when he blinked.  When he finally closed his eyes to sleep, Tifa could still barely perceive the Mako glow through his lids.  She wondered what they did to SOLDIER candidates, how they exposed them to Mako enough to make their eyes glow, to make their bodies faster and stronger, without killing them or driving them mad.  Maybe it did drive them mad, over time, she pondered with a frown.  She did not want that to happen to Cloud.  More and more, these past few days, she was coming to realize just how important he was to her.  She wanted to be with him, even more than just to protect him from himself, though she wasn’t quite sure why this was.

     “Hey,” Sephiroth’s voice called to him in the darkness, soft and deep, full of concern.  “Are you awake now?  Can you move?”  Cloud opened his eyes to see Sephiroth leaning over him, his bright green eyes full of worry, his black gloved hand on Cloud’s forehead as he knelt over him.
     “Ugh, what happened?” Cloud asked.  “The dragon-”
     “It’s dead,” Sephiroth told him.  “You almost were, too, for a moment there.”  The man stood, offering Cloud a hand up, which the boy took.
     “I remember this,” Cloud realized.  “Back before Nibelheim.  This is what Sephiroth use to be,” he reminded himself sadly.  He watched this memory from outside of it now, like his presence had drifted, whereas his dream of his mother, back at Aeris’ house, had been from within his own body the entire time.  His younger self was contemplating the huge rips in his shirt, his pale skin whole beneath the ragged blue fabric.  “It killed me?”
     “Yes,” Sephiroth admitted.  “But not all the way.  I was able to bring you back.”
     “How can you not be all the way dead?” Cloud asked, looking up at the tall man in amazement.
     Sephiroth shrugged.  “Science says there is still oxygen in the brain.  Religion says the spirit has not yet left the body.”  He shook his head, his long silver bangs swaying on either side of his handsome face.  “Whichever you prefer, there is a window during which the dead can be revived with Magic.”
     “I guess I’m pretty lucky you can cast the right spell,” Cloud acknowledged.  “Thank you, very much.”
     “I can’t very well let all my rookies die from their first mistakes.  How else are you suppose to learn?” Sephiroth demanded with a smile.
     Suddenly, Cloud’s vision went red.  He was no longer standing in the field outside Nibelheim, but inside the Shinra building.  He was in the long hallway leading to the cell block.  Still his vision was tinged red, like he was looking through colored glass.  He was walking up the hall, and turned the corner to see the guard stepping back from the middle cell- the cell he and Tifa were in now- with a keycard in his hand.
     The guard looked up suddenly, his eyes widening.  And then he was dead, impaled on a long thin blade.
     “I never did this,” Cloud protested.  “I’m not remembering this!”
     Whoever it was, who’s eyes he watched through, turned and threw the guard off the end of the sword and into the corner.  The body slid down the wall, leaving a bloody streak.  Then the person faced the door, the control panel’s light green where the others were red.  A gloved hand reached for the door.
     “No,” Cloud insisted with all his will.  “Not in here.  I will not let you come in here,” he told them.  Cloud could feel the smile spread across the other person’s face as they paused, then lowered their hand and turned, stepping over the body in the corner and heading back down the hallway.
     The red vision faded to blackness, and Cloud opened his eyes to darkness.  He lay on the floor inside the cell, just where he had been when he fell asleep.  But his heart was racing, thundering in his ears, and his breath came in accelerated pants.  He sat quickly, staggered to his feet, and looked over at Tifa, where she lay on the bed.  She was fine, her stomach rising and falling with the regular slow breathing of one asleep.
     Then Cloud looked to the door, approaching it tentatively, his hand outstretched.  “It will be locked,” he murmured to himself.  “It will be locked, and that will just have been a dream.”  He set his hand against the door, hesitated again, and pushed.
     The door swung open.
     In an instant, Cloud was out in the hall.  He knelt beside the body of the dead guardsman, checking against hope for a pulse.  Then he returned to the cell.  “Tifa, wake up,” he told her, shaking her shoulder urgently.  “Wake up!”
     Tifa’s eyes snapped open, and she sat, instantly alarmed.  “What’s wrong?” she demanded, looking to the door.  “It’s open?”  She too rushed out, her expression hopeful, then stopped, her hands covering her mouth in horror.  “What happened here?” she whispered.
     “Mayor Domino said he would help us, if we got caught,” Cloud stated coldly.  “But I don’t think this is his style.”  He knelt again, and took the keycard from the man’s limp hand.  He slid the key through the lock on the first door, and kept walking towards the third, grabbing his sword from where it had been left in the far corner.  “Come on, Tifa,” he stated with cool efficiency.  “Wake Aeris.  I’ll get Barret and Red XIII.”
     Tifa watched him numbly, then did as she was told, letting herself into Aeris’ cell.
     “Barret!” Cloud shouted, bursting into the third cell, “Red XIII!”  Both of them awoke when he called their names, looking up at him in confusion.
     “How’d you get in?”  Barret demanded sleepily but with growing alertness, getting to his feet.  “The hell’s goin’ on!?”
     “Come on,” Cloud stated impassively.  “Something’s wrong.”
     They followed him out into the hall, and looked down at the dead guard.
     “Was this done by a human?”  Red XIII wondered, sniffing at the floor.  “I’ll go check the path ahead.”  He took off down the hall without another word, following a set of bloody boot prints on the white linoleum.
     “Tifa, Aeris,” Cloud turned to the door as the two women stepped out.
     “Come on,” Tifa said, trying not to let her fear show through to her voice.  “Let’s follow Red XIII.  We can’t let this chance get away from us.”
     Cloud nodded.  “Come on, Barret.”  He stepped over the body, just as the person had, but tried not to get blood on his own boots.
     “Feel’s wrong to just leave him like this,” Barret muttered, kneeling to close the dead man’s eyes, and retrieving the clips from his gun.  “But we don’t have much choice, do we?”  He followed after the girls, loading the amunition into his metal arm.  They caught up with Cloud at the end of the hallway, where one of Hojo’s assistants had been reduced to a bloody smear on the ground.  Here, Red XIII’s prints followed after the ones left by the man who had done this, and Cloud followed both to the right, away from the elevators.
     In the lower laboratory, the captive animals were strangely quiet.  Red XIII was sitting beside yet another corpse, examining the metal dome that had contained Jenova.  The metal had been slashed to ribbons and forced outward.  Jenova’s body was missing.
     “Did it escape?  Or was it let out?” Cloud wondered aloud, his brow furrowed.  Red XIII said something then, but Cloud did not hear it.  There were other words ringing through his head now.
     “You have tried to plan carefully, but there is one thing you failed to take into account, sir,” a deep cold voice spoke solemnly, but with an obvious edge of malice.  “I will not allow the Promised Land to fall to the likes of you.”
     “Sephiroth!”  Cloud dashed towards the elevator leading up to the second laboratory without another word of explanation.
     “Cloud!” Aeris called, running after him.  She turned and looked back at the others.  “We can’t just let him run off alone!  Look what’s happened here!” she exclaimed in alarm, gesturing to the body at their feet.  “He could be hurt, or-“
     “You’re right,”  Tifa agreed.  “I’m afraid of what I might see, but I can’t let anything happen to him.”
     They followed the bloody trail, passing the bodies of several more people, both in suits and in guard uniforms, through the labs, up the stairs, and into the President’s huge lobby.  The blood continued right up one of the grand staircases, and the President’s pretty secretary lay limp at the foot of the stairs, her neck at an odd angle, a smeared hand-print at her throat.  Up in the President’s office, they finally caught up to Cloud.  He was just standing there, his fists clenched.  Looking past him, they realized why.
     “He’s dead,” Barret muttered.  “The leader of Shinra, Inc. is dead.”
     And so he was, laying across his huge high-tech desk, a long sword piercing him through the chest.  His face was frozen in an expression of dismayed horror.
     “This sword-!” Tifa started, frightened more by the sight of it than all the carnage they had passed on the way here.
     “The Masamune,” Cloud confirmed.
     “Sephiroth is alive?” Tifa asked, trembling, her voice begging him to deny this fact.
     “He’s the only man who can wield that sword,” Cloud stated, still as unresponsive as before.  Tifa was starting to suspect that this was Cloud’s automatic response, a result of his SOLDIER’s training, to his own fear.
     “Who cares who did it!?” Barret demanded.  “This is the end of the Shinra now!”  The worried, fearful expression Tifa wore confused him, as did Cloud’s utter lack of emotion.  They should have been glad, at least, that they had not had to do this.
     “Is he gone?” a small voice asked.  Palmer, head of the Shinra Space Program, looked out from behind the desk, a file clutched in his fat trembling hands.  “Oh!  You!” he exclaimed fearfully, jumping back and making a break for the stairway.  Cloud and Barret both dove after him, catching him by the arms.  “P-p-p- Please, don’t kill me!” the man begged, flinching away from them.
     “What happened here?” Cloud demanded, his eyes shining oddly.
     Palmer looked up at him, suddenly still, not even breathing, then he stammered, “Se- Sephiroth.  Sephiroth came.”  He gasped for breath.
     “Did you actually see him?” Cloud asked, his knuckles white around the man’s arm.  “Did you see Sephiroth?”
     “Yeah, I saw him!!”  Palmer squealed in pain, trying to pull away from this terrifying young man.  “I saw him with my own eyes!”  He saw the doubt in Cloud’s deep eyes, and continued quickly.  “I heard his voice too!  I really did!  He was saying something about not letting us have the Promised Land.”
     Cloud’s hand suddenly relaxed, and he let go of the balding executive, who dropped to his knees, holding his arm and whimpering.
     “Does that mean that the Promised Land really exists, and that Sephiroth’s here to save it from Shinra?”  Tifa asked, sounding confused more than hopeful.
     “So he’s a good guy then?” Barret speculated along more optimistic lines.
     “A good guy?” Cloud twitched.  “It’s not that simple.  He might be trying to keep the Shinra away from the Promised Land, but that doesn’t make him like us.  He has a different agenda, I can guarantee it.  He’s not just trying to protect it.”
     “Cloud, can we know that?” Tifa asked him.
     “Tifa!” Cloud exclaimed angrily, “He murdered your father!  He almost killed YOU!”
     Tifa flinched and said nothing.  Aeris approached and placed a consoling hand on her shoulder.  In the silence that fell over the room, the chopping of helicopter blades could be heard.  Palmer looked up, hope springing into his face, and dashed for the side doors leading to the balcony.
     “Rufus!” Barret exclaimed.  “Shit, I forgot about him!”
     “Vice President Rufus,” Tifa stated, her voice slowly gaining strength.  “The President’s son.  I wonder what kind of person he is . . .”
     “I’ve heard that no one’s ever seen him bleed or cry,” Aeris mused.
     “He’s been assigned somewhere else for a long time,” Barret added.  “Even his old man didn’t want him around.”
     “I’ve only ever heard his name,” Red XIII admitted.
     Cloud followed Palmer out onto the balcony, and the rest caught up with him.
     Palmer was on his knees, sobbing, at the feet of a lovely young man in a snow white suit.  The pants and coat were of standard cut, the double breasted jacket well tailored and decorated with two rows of red-gold buttons.  Alone they would have made an unremarkable but fashionable suit.  Under the coat, however, the young man wore a matching white vest, which flared at the waist and fell about his ankles, rather like a trench coat, but undeniably more suited for a conference room.  His face was almost angelically sweet, his reddish blond hair and his blue eyes the only traits that marked him physically as the late President’s son.  At his hip hung a shotgun in a white leather holster.
     “So,” he addressed Palmer in a disarmingly soft spoken tenor.  “Sephiroth was actually here.”  Then he looked up past the man, his eyes flicking across them.  “By the way,” he started.  Palmer looked back, gave a little shriek, and scrambled into the helicopter that still hovered by the balcony.  At a gesture from Rufus, the helicopter pulled away, but continued to hover around the top of the building like a bee.  “Who are you guys?” Rufus asked expectantly, an inviting smile on his youthful face.
     “Cloud Strife, former SOLDIER First Class,” Cloud stated factually.
     Rufus looked at each of them in turn as they spoke, attentively alert.
     “I’m from Avalanche!”  Barret grumbled, gesturing with his gun arm.
     “Same here!” Tifa frowned.
     “I’m- a flower girl from the slums,” Aeris intoned shyly, not eager to let the new President of Shinra, Inc. know that she was an Ancient.
     “A research specimen,” Red XIII stated blandly.
     Rufus chuckled.  “What a crew,” he observed with delight.  Then,  sliding his hand into his jacket pocket and brushing his side swept bangs out of his eyes, his careful speech suprisingly casual, he said, “Well, I’m Rufus.  The President of Shinra, Inc.”
     “You only President ‘cause your old man died!” Barret stated rather resentfully.
     “That’s right,” Rufus smiled brightly.  “I’ll let you hear my new appointment speech.”  He showed no grief in the slightest over his father’s murder.  He walked strait up to Tifa, his charming smile unwavering.  “My father tried to control the world with money, as I’m sure you’re all well aware.  It seems to have been working, too.”  He turned to Aeris, who avoided his eyes but did not back away from him.  “The population thought that Shinra would protect their livelihoods,” the young President continued smoothly, looking up into Barret’s skeptical face.
     “Work at Shinra, Inc., get your pay.  Remain confidant that the Shinra army will keep you safe,” Rufus traced the cycle of recent events so nonchalantly.  “It looked perfect from the outside,” he admitted.  “But underneath it was full of corruption and inefficiency, and thanks to you all, it’s started to fall apart.  That is why I intend to do things differently.”  Rufus made his way back to the edge of the balcony, his white vest flying behind him, the wind tossing his hair.  He leaned out across the city, which glittered like a jewel in the night, as though breathing it in.
     Behind his back, Tifa and Barret were exchanging a tentatively hopeful glance.
     Then Rufus spoke again, his smile still ringing on his clear voice.  “A little fear will control the minds of the common people,” he stated angelically.  “There’s no reason to waste money on them.”
     The chopping blades of the helicopter fell like peals of thunder in the shocked silence that followed that statement.
     “Oh, my God,” Tifa breathed in horror.  “He’s even worse than his father!”
     “Barret, get Aeris outta here,” Cloud commanded.
     “What?”  Barret asked him, as if he had just proposed they all leap from the side of the building.
     “If we don’t nip this in the bud now, this will become the real crisis for the Planet!” Cloud hissed.  “I can take care of him, but only if I know Aeris is safe.  I’ll be right behind you, I promise,” he added.
     “Awright, Cloud,” Barret agreed, and the others followed him as he ran back inside and downstairs.
     Aeris hesitated in the President’s lobby.  “What if something happens to him?” she fretted.  “We would never know . . .”
     “I’ll wait to make sure he makes it,” Tifa stated firmly.  “Go, Aeris,” she hugged the other woman reassuringly.  “Your safety is why we are here.  Please don’t give him more cause to worry,” she pleaded.
     Aeris nodded, running out the door and towards the elevator, Red XIII beside her and Barret scarcely a stride behind.
     “Cloud,” Tifa murmured, worried, looking back up towards the Presidential office.

     Out on the balcony, the chill night wind whipped at the two young men standing there.
     “Why do you want to fight me?” Rufus asked sweetly, obviously amused by the idea.
     “You seek the Promised Land, and Sephiroth,” Cloud stated coldly.
     “I do,” the young President admitted, walking nonchalantly up to Cloud, leaning unnervingly close.  “Did you know that Sephiroth is an Ancient?” he asked, contemplating Cloud’s own Mako stained eyes.
     “That doesn’t matter,” Cloud stated, stepping back and drawing his sword over his shoulder, pointing it unwaveringly at his seraphic opponent.  “I can’t let either you or Sephiroth have the Promised Land.”
     “I see,” Rufus still smiled, though his voice was colored with playful disappointment.  “I guess this means we can’t become friends.”  His eyes hardened suddenly, and he jumped back, his shotgun instantly in his hand.  He brought his fingers to his lips and gave a piercing whistle.  A great black feline bounded down from the helicopter, landing unerringly beside the new President, and moved protectively in front of the young man.
     Cloud ran forward, slashing at Rufus, who jumped back again, dodging easily.  Carrying through, Cloud forced the President to continue retreating.  At this rate, he would have the young man pinned against the edge of the balcony in no time.  The black feline, rather than attempting to distract Cloud, stood in apparent meditation, and suddenly a burst of energy, like a million glittering shards of glass, enveloped President Rufus in a magical barrier.  Still, Cloud struck at him, and still Rufus dodged, smiling in Cloud’s face the whole while.  Finally, Cloud had him backed against the balcony rail, the wind buffeting them sharply.
     The ex-SOLDIER struck again, and Rufus launched himself strait up and over Cloud’s head, turning beautifully in midair.  Cloud started turning a moment too late, and felt the twin barrels of the shotgun press into his back.  He threw himself to the side, as the gun went off with a deafening blast, rolling and bringing his sword up like a shield.
     “Well done,” Rufus complimented him, laughing joyfully.  “I’ve never had anyone avoid that attack before.  You’re certainly something!”
     “You’re not bad yourself,” Cloud admitted grudgingly, shaking the ringing out of his ears.
     “Thank you,” Rufus smiled, shooting at him again.
     Cloud scattered the spray of bullets with a spin of his sword, charging into them, and thrusting at the young President, who obviously had not expected to be attacked again so soon.  Cloud could feel the resistance of the magical barrier, like a physical force.  It felt as if he was trying to shove his blade through a wall.  But that would not stop him.  The point of his blade punched into Rufus’s chest, and the young man’s eyes widened in surprise.  But the smile did not leave his face as he staggered back, and the blade had failed to pierce even the fabric of his coat.
     The President’s pet tackled Cloud from the side, knocking him off his feet and snapping at his face.  Cloud shrugged, sending his steel pauldron into the beast’s teeth instead, switching his sword hand and catching the animal by the throat.  It snarled and whimpered, clawing at Cloud with its forepaws, and trying to figure out how to get it’s teeth around his fingers.  Cloud was aware, as he wrestled with the huge black cat, of Rufus taking aim once more, and pulled the cat between himself and the gun as it fired.  Then he tossed the yowling, pain wracked beast off of him, finishing it off with a stab as he rose to his feet.
     Rufus’ smile, if anything, widened.
     Cloud scowled, not enjoying the sensation that he was being used for sport.  His blood itched as it trickled down his arms and side, soaking into his shirt, the little balls of shot buried into his muscles burning as he moved.  He dropped into a defensive stance, his eyes glued on the President, but his mind casting into the Materia at his wrist.  He closed his eyes as a bolt of lightning flashed from the dark sky, turning the night bright as day for that instant as it struck the ground at the President’s feet.  In the stench of scorched ozone, Cloud charged forward again, taking advantage of his foe’s momentary blindness.  He struck, an upward slash that sent Rufus crashing back into the guard rail.
     Rufus chuckled, but weakly.  “Very impressive,” he grinned.  Cloud attacked again, but Rufus used the barrel of his shotgun to force the blade to the side, where it drove deep into the concrete.  “I think,” the smiling man leaned forward, his face only inches from Cloud’s.  Cloud pulled away from him in alarm.  “That’s all for today,” Rufus finished, sounding disappointed at the prospect, his ever-present smile taking a melancholy turn.  He raised his arm into the air, and the circling helicopter descended above him.  “It wouldn’t do for me to become badly injured on my first day in office, now would it?”  He grabbed hold of the helicopter’s runner, hanging on with little difficulty as the aircraft lifted him from the rooftop and around the side of the building.
     “Damnit!” Cloud cursed, wrenching his sword back out of the concrete guardrail.  “This is going to become more complicated than I had hoped.”  He ran inside, taking the stairs down two at a time.  Tifa was waiting for him.
     “Where’s Rufus?” she asked, noting with concern that he bled.
     “He ran away before I could finish him off,” Cloud frowned.  “Come on.  Let’s catch an elevator down.  I’d really appreciate if you could help to get these bullets out of me,” he admitted.
     “Cloud, I’m so sorry,” Tifa started, tailing after him.  “I should have gone up to help you fight, I-”
     “I am definitely glad you didn’t try to,” Cloud stated.  Something in his voice made Tifa’s die in her throat.  Instead, she just nodded.