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Final Fantasy 7. Tifa Lockhart: Journey to Midgar.	By : Nickamano Category: Final Fantasy VII > General Views: 7306 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: Final Fantasy 7 is created and owned by Squaresoft, now Square-Enix. Nothing here is owned by me. It was created for entertainment purposes, and I am not profiting financially from the creation and online presentation of this story.

Chapter List
- 5
- 6
- 7
Part 1 – REBIRTH.
It was a rhythmic, dull-echoey, thudding sound that was the first element of the outside world to enter Tifa Lockhart’s inner realm of calm, safe nothingness and free-floating comfort. A realm that had only been interrupted by welcome infusions of warming and revitalising food and trickles cold, invigorating water.

Waking, Tifa delightedly yawned then slipped into a supine, body-distorting stretch before slowly allowing her eyes to open, all the while explicitly aware of the unfamiliar pain in her chest that seemed to be throbbing in time the echoing thuds going on outside. Rubbing absently at her sore chest through the soft blanket covering her up to her throat, she took a bleary-eyed look around the vaguely familiar interior of the little wooden cabin.

Maybe ten paces from wall to wall, it appeared to be constructed half of stone and half of wood. There was a large wood-burning fire directly opposite, forming the centre of a larger blackened-stone stove that served as a cooking area, bakery and possibly even a kiln. There were a number of stone alcoves of varying sizes in the stone chimney breast, each with heavy blackened iron doors. On either side of the stove, with its walled in-chimney reaching up through the cone shaped roof, were too alcoves. The right hand one was filled, practically floor to ceiling, with roughly hewn logs. And in front of the stacked logs were a couple of wooden barrels filled with kindling. The left alcove was filled in with simple shelving that housed clothing, bedding and other items. Tifa spotted a number of books, an angled wooden display rack of a dozen or so Materia orbs of four different colours, a few small melee weapons and other less identifiable yet certainly interesting looking trinkets.

The entire wall to Tifa’s left had been smoothed flat, first with wattle and daub and then a layer of fine render over it. Onto the render there had been painted a colourful and intricate scale map of the entire world of Gaia, all four continents and islands, with many of the major locations marked. The map captivated her for a long time.

Even though she was not paying conscious attention, the rhythmic dull thuds from outside continued to make themselves known, the echoes catching somewhere in the back of her mind again and somehow synchronising with a pulsing pain in her chest.

Finally pulling her attention away from the map, she looked across at the right side of the room, where there was a door in the middle of the wall flanked on both sides by more shelving and cupboards.

She was lying on what was essentially a big pile of super-soft pillows, with smooth lightweight blankets covering her. The lush embrace of a rectangle of softness that could have been a bed or a couch. On the wall behind her, that the bed-couch was pushed up against, the right side housed another door while the corner to her left was cluttered with barrels and boxes, both attached to angled shelves on the wall itself and also free-standing on the floor.

The brilliant morning light streaming into the singular room was tinted with green and she looked up, following a greenish sunbeam and noticing that there were actually windows on every wall, long and narrow windows but they were all in the upper-most quarter of each wall, good for letting in light though poor for seeing through, at least not without a ladder. Looking up higher still, she noticed though not quite a second storey, the roof and its simple rafters went higher than it needed to and there was a kind of interior veranda along the circumference of where the ceiling would have been, just above the windows and featuring a low wooden railing. Half of the veranda was taken up with more storage, while the other half had been designated as sleeping quarters and sported two actual netting hammocks. Tifa guessed that was where Zangan had been sleeping.

It was a lovely and peaceful place, well stocked and yet sparse, speaking of a life of simplicity. It smelled wonderous, of woodsmoke and sap and of the forest, of fresh air and cleanliness. She yawned again and sat up straight, swung her legs off the side of the bed, stretched herself out again, catlike. Then looked down and saw she was wearing unfamiliar clothing.

Her legs and feet were bear through she could feel soft cotton shorts riding up high between the tops of her thighs. Her torso was covered by a down-soft and somewhat fleecy white top with bell-sleeves and a wrap-around front. It felt reminiscent of fashions from the Western-most continent of Wutai.

Once again, the ache in her chest made itself known, throbbing insistently. Tifa drew apart the crossed front flaps of the shirt and looked down over her naked chest. The valley of skin between her breasts was obviously the source of the pain.

The skin there was raw and red, however other than that it was smooth in texture. And other than the redness, the only visible evidence of something being amiss was a small and smooth line of white scar tissue, maybe as long as her thumb, from just above the base of her ribs. Once the inflamed skin had calmed down and returned to its natural colouring, that small scar would be the only evidence that she had ever been attacked.

She remembered most of it clearly enough. Finding her mortally wounded father, the huge curved sword of that bastard Sephiroth had stuck in the earth beside him. Her father dying in her arms…. Her father… Dying… In her arms.
Her father was dead… Murdered… And now she really was all alone.
The tears started to flow even as the jolting, somewhat staccato-memory continued. Tifa allowed the memory to infuse her completely. She needed to see it through all the way, however painful it was.

She had grabbed the murderer’s sword as she ran for the reactor. Its weight and balance new to her and at first unwieldy but her rage and hatred and grief had forced her on, moving blindly though the maze-like interior of the reactor until she had stumbled across the red room with the pale blue pods. And the murderer. That tall, silver haired man. The famous warrior. Standing there at the top of the staircase.

She had been enamoured with him that first day, he was very handsome and full of wisdom and a cool, calm aura of self-confidence. And yet he had quickly revealed himself to also be aloof and standoffish and she had found it much easier to form a bond with spiky haired Zack who had been the murderer’s second, his young partner. Zack had been warm, yet cocky, fun and confident, yet full of himself. He had made her laugh.

She had attacked the murder with his own long-sword but he had used a perfectly executed grappling technique that she hadn’t been prepared for, grabbing the four-hand hilt of the sword, even as she swung it down at his head, and then using his elbow and forearm to take away her grip of the blade, sweeping it right out of her grasp. And then, with no emotion behind those startling glowing-azure eyes, he had whipped the sword around and up and sliced her vertically up her mid-section. She had felt her top sliced apart, and had seen the initial splash of bright red blood, just as the innate power in the pristinely executed upper-cut had lifted her off her feet and tossed her down onto the hard metal stairs below.

She had known she was dying, and she had momentarily embraced that assurance that she would be joining her parents inside the everlasting Lifestream, just as her beloved master Zangan had once explained to her.

However, the first real pulse of pain had sparked in her attention and a sudden deep recognition of her circumstances had blazed in her mind, accelerating her heart and the pain and blood loss that went with it. She had tried to rise, but there had been a sudden blazing agony in one side of her chest and she had realised she was also finding very hard to breathe. And then abruptly, inexplicably, it had come back to her. The Promise.

Made three years earlier when Cloud had confessed his intention to her - that he was going to leave Nibelheim to join SOLDIER, and to make it to First Class ranking, just like his hero Sephiroth. Twelve year-old Tifa had suddenly felt the need to tie them together, after everything they had been through, the guilt she had felt for the way Cloud had been treated by the other villagers, especially her father, following the incident on the mountain that had left her in a coma for seven days and the fact that she had done little to set the record straight afterwards.

She knew Cloud hadn’t blamed her and she had been grieving her mother’s death but still, with most of her other friends hating Cloud and many of them making their own plans to leave or having left already, at the time she had felt like losing Cloud as well would be too much for her. So, she had convinced him to promise to become her ‘Knight in Shining Armour’, should she ever need him. It had been meant to compliment him, to play into his ideas about heroism, SOLDIER and Sephiroth. Play into the idea that he could be her Sephiroth, someone she would look up to that way Cloud looked up to his hero.

Afterwards she had looked back on that in-the-moment promise, and had seen lots of reasons for it that she hadn’t recognised at the time. She had been bolstering his dreams, trying to feed into his childish fantasies of a heroic individual that everyone could look up to. The obvious fantasy that he could one day come back to his home village and everyone who currently hated and ostracised him would love him. Hero-worship. Acceptance.

She had also been trying to develop the unspoken yet already existing bond between them. A closeness and comradeship, even though they had never really been friends or spent much time together. And yet, together they had been through that trauma on the mountain, and she had witnessed his adoration for her, and his strength and his concern and fear that she might die. He had saved her in those initial moments, even though no one would ever admit it. She knew it.

The adoration wasn’t anything to her, she saw that in the eyes of most of the boys her age and many older villagers. She knew how pretty she was, her mother had been extremely pretty too, but boys were silly and childish so it meant nothing to her.

However, when she had fallen from the bridge and, without a thought for his own safety, he had gone after her, essentially saved her and to all intents and purposes brought her back from the brink of death. And then afterwards, taking the blame for her coma, being ostracised by everyone. That had been something, something different, something strong.

Even without any communication or time spent together, their bond had developed; from afar and, she felt, mutually from her side and his. Long glances through her bedroom window. From across the square. From, in every way, opposite sides of Nibelheim, their bond had formed. And she had cemented that bond with The Promise - for him to come running and protect her should she ever need him. To offer herself in the role of ‘damsel in distress’.

However, in that red room inside the Mount Nibel reactor, she had been there alone and dying, needing to be saved. And yet, he wasn’t anywhere. Since that spring when he had left home - following their late-night ’00 winter conversation on the water tower, there had been no word from him at all. He had simply vanished.

He had left on foot, heading for Midgar. And since then, there had been nothing in the newspapers, no reports of him ever joining SOLDIER. No word. No letter. No sign. He had just disappeared. And now he had broken his Promise to her.

She hadn’t really taken it seriously, or so she had thought, she was just trying to help him to bolster his childish fantasies of heroism, to give herself a role as his object to protect, however foolish it had seemed to her. And yet, since he had left that spring of ’01, she had taken much more of an interest in his plight than she would have previously expected, searching for news of his progress, of his successes and yet finding nothing. And still she had held onto The Promise, somewhere in the back of her mind. The previous dedication he had shown her on the mountain had somehow made her a believer. And yet. The one real-life time she actually needed to be saved, protected, avenged. He was nowhere to be seen, and in that desperate moment, it had broken her heart.

Zack had appeared and tried to help, but she had pushed him away in her grief, anger and pain. He was Shin-Ra and Shin-Ra were responsible. Her father dead, her village aflame, The Promise broken. She had wanted to die then. Better to die than to be saved by someone who represented Shin-Ra - the very evil that had killed her father and she was beginning to realise, was also killing the planet itself. So, Zack, showing an understanding that made her feel guilty for rejecting his attempt at kindness, had run past her instead chasing after the murderer. And that had been her final memory.

She had woken up little over a week ago in this same cabin. And had been shocked and then bowled-over with love and gratitude that it had been her beloved tutor who had rescued her. If not Cloud, then who better than master Zangan himself?

She looked around the room again. Was this the first time she had been able to sit up? She thought maybe it was… There were other vague memories of being here slipping into her mind from somewhere deep down. The delicious, warm, soothing comfort of the bed, the pillows and the soft blankets. Of staring with unfocussed eyes into the roaring fire. The lovely, restful, peaceful warmth of night-time with lit oil-lanterns casting a lovely warming glow along with the dancing firelight from the stove. Of Zangan spooning delicious hot broths into her mouth with a small hand-carved wooden spoon.

She stood, slowly and carefully, mentally relying on the dozen or more well-filled pillows and the enfolding softness of the mattress behind to catch her if she fell. Though after a couple of uncertain seconds, she found her balance was with her and then risked taking a little turn around the cabin.

Her chest throbbed with a dull pain but her legs worked okay. She felt weak and soft, her muscles gone to jelly, but that could be remedied easily enough. The dull rhythmic thudding outside gave her something to pace to, an incidental metronome. She noticed the floor was made out of smoothed wooden planks with a couple of rugs thrown down for warmth and comfort. The opposing textures of floorboards and rugs against the soles of her bare feet felt good to her as she circled the cabin’s interior, hard and cool then soft and warm.

A vague memory of being carried across the floor by Zangan, toward the door in the cabin’s right-wall brought back to her that it was in fact the bathroom and toilet. She could even picture its layout. And in that moment, she realised her bladder was full and demanding attention. So, partly to further test her balance and manoeuvrability, she went into the small side-room to complete the task.

The echoing thuds, she realised, as they caught her attention yet again, seemed to be coming from outside. And emerging from the bathroom, she looked over at the other door. Something not quite remembered, and yet in her mind, somehow assured her that this second door led outside. She almost felt something of a vague recollection of being carried into the cabin through that door. Or had that been a dream?

Finally, she went to the other door and swung it open. It was heavier than the bathroom door with thick fabric rollers at the surround to keep the winter cold at bay. She swung the door inwards and looked out into the blazing beauty of the morning.

Beyond the cabin lay the loose crescent of a beautiful stream-divided clearing, surrounded by the picturesque backdrop of the all-encompassing forest. The narrow but fast-flowing stream was fed by a small waterfall that was out of sight, somewhere behind the cabin. It cut a Zolom-curving path through this flat area of ground where Zangan had built his home. The clearing had a few large rocks here and there and a couple of felled tree stumps but there were many saplings around its outer edge and beyond that, the trees were thick and tall, and with leaves that were beautiful shades of emerald and jade. The high sun cut down through the leafy canopy and broken sunbeams threw rounded spotlights onto the grass that carpeted the clearing. Off to the left side of the clearing was a small rectangle of newly furrowed ground with three-foot bamboo stakes and little wooden markers. Some kind of kitchen garden, Tifa assumed.

She cast her eyes wider, taking in the remainder of the view from the front of the cabin, far left to far right. And there, where she knew he would be, was Zangan. He was, of course, the cause of the echoing thuds.

He was cutting logs, around the right side of the cabin, firewood for the alcove wall. And he was doing it with his bare hands. Knife hand, ridge hand, left hand, right hand, swapping back and forth between two techniques and both hands.

Tifa watched him for a long time, leaning idly with her back against the doorframe, a half-smile playing across her lips, enjoying the view her surroundings afforded her.

Zangan was stripped to the waist and sporting a thin film of sweat that made his muscular torso gleam in the forest-dappled sun. He might have grey hair and a greying beard but hell, he was built like a behemoth. Much more powerful musculature than the pretty boys she had occasionally admired modelling all the latest fashions in the mail-order catalogues back home - where she remembered being most exhilarated by the underwear pages. Zangan put them all to shame.

He might not have the androgynous model good looks of the catalogue boys but the depth of sheer kindness in his eyes and his easy smile that was always backed up by his thoughtful behaviour and benevolent personality, had always left her a little weak at the knees. However, this was the first time ever that she had found herself looking at him in ‘that way’.

She shook it off, despite the scintillating pleasure it nurtured in her dancing gut. Instead, she took a moment to watch his immaculate martial-chopping technique. The power projected through his unprotected hands was remarkable as he centred himself over the log that must be a foot thick and at least two feet in diameter, rested his straight-fingered hand over the log, picking the point of impact, then raised his arm up over his head, and with a flurry of snapped hips, core, shoulders and arm, brought the knife-hand down onto the log with all his body’s energy focussed into a tiny bone at the base of the outer edge of his palm. It chopped straight through the log, right the way down as far as the tree-stump he was using as a table. The wood split perfectly, straight through the middle, leaving behind two crescents as perfectly separated if he had used a saw to accomplish it. He didn’t even use Kiai. Instead chopping in silence.

He repeated the strike with his other hand, an inverted straight-fingered chop, this time using the opposite bone at the base of the palm beneath his thumb joint as the point of contact, quartering the log. Then he straightened up, breathing slow but deep, centred himself and then blinked and looked up and around, as though emerging from a self-induced trance.

Seeing the opening, Tifa gave a little wave to attract his attention. The smile that spread across the lower half of his well-maintained beard made her stomach flutter all over again. And he shook his arms to free the tension and then started across the clearing toward her.

“Good morning, child.”
“And to you, master Zangan.”
“You know I don’t like that title.” He said with a dismissive laugh.
“That’s why I use it, master.” She replied with a deliberately blank, wide eyed expression.
“How are you feeling, this morning.”
“Weak, but stronger.”
“That’s good to hear. And it’s good to see you up and about.”
Tifa merely smiled.
“Are you hungry? Ready for some breakfast?”
Tifa nodded enthusiastically.
“Yes please, I’m famished… I should make it, though. Cooking is my second biggest skill.”
“I’m well aware, child, I’ve sampled your cooking before. Tomorrow, though. This morning it’s my pleasure.”
“Okay then, master… By the way, I’m not a child anymore, master.”
Zangan laughed and hugged Tifa in a tiny embrace that was a little too chaste for her liking. Just his hands against her shoulder blades, not even cheek-to-cheek and certainly not the anticipated bear hug.

“I’ll stop calling you ‘child’ when you stop calling me ‘master’.”
“We’ll see.” Tifa replied.
She filled a large earthenware jug with fresh water from the stream, and then poured the water through a filter into a kettle on the stove while Zangan brought out some mushrooms, vegetables and some eggs from a cupboard.

They were talking about Tifa’s injuries, her still hazy memory and when she would be able to start training and building up her strength again.

“…The damage turned out to be worse that I had initially thought.”
“Really? How so?”
“Well, you had three broken ribs, a punctured lung and internal bleeding. I managed to stem the bleeding, made sure your ribs were correctly set, and re-inflated your lung but how you survived the trip down here from the mountains, I’ll never know. It’s taken six weeks and a lot of uses of a Mastered Cure Materia to fully enable your recovery. You were actually in a coma for seven days in the beginning.”
“A coma for seven days? Again? That was the same length of time as what happened after mother died.”
“I noticed that. Possibly something to do with your natural healing metabolism… You’re long out of the coma of course, but for the last month or so you’ve been pretty out of it, sometimes feverish but mostly sleeping.”
“I noticed my scar…”
“Yeah…” He said blushing considerably.
He was trying to keep from looking back at her as he worked the ingredients in a wide shallow pan on the stove.
“…It’s healing well, the pain and redness will fade soon enough. Obviously, I’ve had to bathe you and change your dressings and your bed-clothes, for the last six weeks, so…”
“…You’ve seen me naked. It’s fine Zangan, don’t give it a second thought. Thank you, so much for saving me. I’d have died up on that mountain, if it weren’t for you.”
“I just wish I could have got to you sooner, or been able to…” He stopped himself, uncertain of how much she knew, or remembered.
“How much do you remember?”

“Sephiroth killed my father... Set fire to my village… I remember enough.”
“I’m afraid your village will be nothing but ashes. I’m sorry I could get there in time to save your father... He was good man.”
“He was...”
It was a strange way to reply Zangan thought, however, he let it slide. She was probably still in shock.
They settled into a subdued silence for a long time.
There were no signs of tears this time, it didn’t seem real for Tifa. She was numb to it all. She remembered it in detail but it was like seeing a play. As though it had happened to other people.
“Do you know what happened to Sephiroth?” She asked.
Zangan came to the table and used a wooden spatula to shuffle the cooked meal onto their plates. Then he sat down opposite her on their small fold-out dining table.
“Afraid not. But I overheard some Shin-Ra guards saying he’d disappeared. That there were no signs of him in the reactor.”
The conversation dried up after that and they finished their breakfast in silence.

After cleaning up they went outside. Zangan proclaiming the fresh air and a little exercise would be good for her, though Tifa wanted nothing more than to throw herself into a full training regime. It had always been a salve for her, a way to clear her head of problems, something positive and rewarding and self-improving. Though of course, Zangan told her to take it easy and to stick to warming up exercises to begin with, at least until she was properly healed and no longer feeling any physical effects of the stab wound.

So, while Zangan busied himself with household chores and tending his vegetable garden, Tifa ran and climbed trees and explored the forest around the cabin, pushing herself until her heart was hammering behind her sore ribs. It felt good, not only to be up and about and in this beautiful, idyllic locale but also to be pushing her body again, on the path to regaining her previous levels of fitness and skill.

“I didn’t know you had a house out here… Though, where is ‘here’ exactly?” Tifa asked over their evening meal.
“Oh, we’re due south of your village, very close to the south coast. Have you heard of Gongaga village?”
“No.”
“That’s the nearest settlement, due east of us. It’s even smaller than Nibelheim.”
He drew himself back from the small table and pointed out their location on the giant wall map.

“We’re about here….” He pointed, then shifted his index finger to another cluster of woodland to the right. “And this is Gongaga.”
“So, we’re all the way down there? This is easily the furthest I’ve ever been from home.”
“Technically we’re in part of the Ancient Forest that borders Cosmo Canyon but this is still fresh and growing, and not much different to other normal forests you’ll find all over this part of the world. The core of the Ancient Forest is quite a lot different, it’s on a plateau, tightly packed with flora, it has a pretty oppressive air and monsters you won’t find anywhere else. Not a place you’d really want to live in. Though this little clearing is perfect.”
“It’s really beautiful.” Tifa agreed. “Like something out of a children’s story book.”
Smiling, Zangan returned to the table to finish his vegetable pie.
“I try and keep my destructive presence at a minimum. Meat-wise, I only kill and eat what attacks me. And I collect tree seeds throughout the summer and make sure I plant three new trees for every one I cut down. Fortunately for the forest, I usually never stay here for very long so I don’t make much of a negative impact.”
“You care a great deal for the planet, Zangan. I love that about you.” Tifa gushed.
Zangan found himself blushing and hurriedly grabbed hold of a dismissive response.
“We should all care a great deal for the planet… And for each other.”
- 5
- 6
- 7
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Final Fantasy 7. Tifa Lockhart: Journey to Midgar.