Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ The Heroes of the World ❯ Chapter 6 ( Chapter 7 )

Disclaimer: I don't own…*yawn*….Final Fantasy or…..*yawn*… Square-Enix.

Sorry about not updating sooner! But it was the first day of school some Tuesday's ago and I was a bit tied up. I probably will be updating only on weekends. But I'm back! We can all thank FF8's ending for that. It's my encouragement to go on. And I'm back with the plot actually clear in my own head!

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Once Tifa was secure on his bike, Cloud sped up the motorcycle and headed for the gate out of Midgar. An insecure beam had fallen on the gate, causing the gate to collapse.

 

 

Bahamut's Mega Flare attack unleashed onto the ground below, obliterating everything that was in its way. Cloud could feel the earth shaking and heard the attack coming closer and closer to him and Tifa. He pushed himself lower, hoping to get the tiny extra burst of speed he needed to clear the gate of Midgar. Forty feet, thirty feet….as they got closer to the gate, the objects that were being thrown up by the Mega Flare were getting bigger. Within ten feet of the crashed gate, and Bahamut's attack, something hit Cloud's arm, causing him to steer off course a bit.

 

 

He shook off the stab of pain and concentrated on the gate right ahead of him. He held his breath, hoping that the bike wouldn't be overthrown by the powerful attack. The moment Cloud's bike was in the middle of the two walls, Cloud nearly screamed in thanks for whoever allowed him to have another day with Tifa. But even if he was the yelling type, which he really wasn't, he could barely breathe and much less yell out with Tifa's machine-like grip.

 

 

Once Cloud was in the forest some way away from Midgar, he slowed his bike to a stop. He waited a moment for Tifa to let go of him. “Tifa…” He whispered. Tifa didn't move. “….Tifa…?” He said again, a bit louder. Once again she didn't stir, which made Cloud's heart race. He was afraid to look back to see what might've happened to her. Maybe she's just joking, Cloud thought, but if she was, it wasn't very funny.

 

 

Cloud slowly pulled her hands off of him, and, heart pumping, turned to look at her. Cloud's breath caught in his throat when he saw her. Shortly after he felt the sharp pain of tears, it was immediately turned into hate at himself. Why hadn't he protected her more? Even though he kept saying that over and over in his head, a small voice kept responding, how could you have protected her? He knew the debris was getting larger and larger, but he just shook it off.

 

 

Tifa's face was covered in blood from a large gash in her forehead, and there were several large ugly bruises. Why didn't he look like that himself? What had protected him? Cloud gave a quick check of him and found only small cuts and bruises; the only severe looking one was on his arm where he felt something hit him. Cloud took a deep breath and closed his eyes to think. He opened them again to survey his surroundings. He didn't bother to go to a specific forest, so he didn't know which forest he was in or whether or not it was near civilization. He concluded to make camp under the starry night and try to heal Tifa's wounds as best he could. Cloud cursed out loud when he remembered he didn't bother to equip any Cure materia since he was training in a low-level area.

 

 

He checked his pouch and was relieved when he felt a couple of potion bottles. After checking his equipment and supplies, he picked Tifa up and laid her gently on the ground. It reminded him so much of Aerith, but he hoped that he wouldn't have to say good-bye forever. He took out one of his potions and sprinkled it over all her cuts and bruises, causing a light glow to encompass her body. The wounds slighted ever so slightly, but it hardly helped. Cloud lingered for a moment, looking at her face, still beautiful even with the injuries. He stood up and started to look for some firewood to warm up the surprisingly cold night. After finding a rather small amount of dry wood, he cast fire which started a small, blazing hot fire next to Tifa's unmoving form

 

 

He cast another glance at Tifa and took out another potion and showered her injuries. He sat in front of the fire, thinking of the Bahamut that attacked Midgar. Who summoned it? Why attack Midgar? What type of Bahamut was it? When-snap. The snap jostled him out of his thoughts. He immediately stood up and crouched in a defensive stance in front of Tifa, searching the woods for the cause of the noise.

 

 

He waited in that position for about five minutes before sitting back down. He shook his head. “Damn squirrels.” Cloud muttered, though he still felt like someone was watching him.

 

 

He sat, wide awake, peering into the fire, as if to find the answer's to the new complications. But, as hard as he tried, nothing came to mind. Cloud didn't even notice the time, even when the fire lowered and then vanished. After what seemed like hours, he turned to look at Tifa's non-moving body. He was relieved to find that her breathing hadn't slowed, or even worse, stopped, but worried at the same time by the slowness of the rise and fall of her chest. The blood had dried on her face, and allowed Cloud's guilt to fall even more heavily on him.

 

 

Once again he heard another twig snap; this time he didn't shake it off. If it was a damn squirrel, he'd kill it without a second thought, though he was almost positive it was something much bigger. He picked up his discarded sword and walked toward the bush as quietly as he could. His gloved hand went up towards the bush to push it back, and with a slowness and steadiness that surprised him, pushed it back to reveal…-“Hiya!”

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The last thing Tidus remembered was running towards Yuna, trying desperately to knock her out of the way, before his world turned black.

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“Yuna! Yuna!” Tidus called out to her, but all she did was stare straight ahead. Tidus shook his head in confusion. Didn't she hear him? Suddenly Yuna twirled about, a smile on her lips, before she started to merge into the background, like a color painting. He returned to the first time he ever met her, she had just come out of the Cloister of Trials, sweaty and beaten, but he couldn't see her face! The hymn was dulled out, but every time before she said she had become a summoner, it would start out again, her face getting clearer and the hymn getting louder. At one time in the loop, the picture changed to her face when she was crying, helpless in the lake, before it went back to the beginning. Then the image changed into her diving off of the temple in Bevelle, before going back to the Besaid temple, but this time he couldn't see her at all.

 

 

What the hell was happening? His mind showed him the different points where he would stare at Yuna until the image was burned into his head, before changing back to the lake where he kissed her, until his mind felt like it would burst.

 

 

“Yuna!” He cried out, and was startled to find he was sitting in a field of flowers. He quickly turned his head in all directions, before hanging his head. “Why am I here? What happened?” He asked to a particular flower, which appeared to just stare back up at him blankly. “What was I dreaming about?” His mind seemed to register coherent thoughts at that point. His head shot up again, but this time he sat up and started running to the sides of the floating island, peering over the edge to see what lay below. He fell to his knees, defeated, once again he had let Yuna down, and he was back in the Farplane, the never-ending sea of flowers and sparkling water. Tidus hoped that at least he had saved her from the piece of rock that had tumbled down.

 

 

He felt the familiar heartbreak and felt the tears start to well up in his eyes. He was just about to lie down and cry until he heard a memorable voice. “I always thought you were quite the cry-baby.”

 

 

He didn't bother to sand up or retort to Auron's insult. “Leave me alone Auron.” Was all he said to the older man.

 

 

“Fine, but I just thought you would want to see Yuna again.” Auron responded in an off-hand way.

 

 

This caused Tidus to stand up and look at Auron straight in the eyes. “I swear, if you're lying to me…”

 

 

“Your not dead Tidus, nor have you disappeared again. Yuna's here too, just a few islands away.” Auron interrupted him before he could finish the threat.

 

 

“What? Are you serious?” Tidus asked hesitantly.

 

 

“Am I ever not serious? Just jump.”

 

 

Tidus eyed him confusedly a moment. “Jump? Like, off this island? What good is that going to do besides get me killed?”

 

 

“Your in the Farplane, anything you do isn't exactly real, just jump, you can't die in a dead dimension.”

 

 

Tidus' excitement washed out the word `dimension', and instead he just ran off the island. He was almost completely sure that this was suicidal, but Auron wasn't going to lie about something serious about that. Tidus squeezed his eyes shut and waited for the impact with the ground below, but instead he felt a weird sensation in his legs and waist, like when you take one too many steps down and aren't expecting solid ground. His eyes opened up to the same scenery as before, but were astonished to see people on this island.

 

 

His eyes immediately spotted the familiar blonde talking excitedly to a short brunette. The almost sun-bright hair captured his eyes for a moment, but his eyes quickly strayed over to Yuna, his Yuna. Someone had apparently told her that he was okay, because she was talking to a raven-haired girl curiously, without a trace of worry on her face.

 

 

He sighed, letting the air out of his lungs he wasn't aware he was holding. He walked over to Yuna, capturing a curious glance from the girl Yuna was talking with. Yuna must have noticed, because she twirled about with a surprised face while Tidus hugged her. Tidus didn't know why he hugged her so closely for so long, perhaps to make sure she was actually there, not about to disappear right before him.

 

 

Yuna apparently didn't want to ruin the moment, so she just hugged him back just as reassuringly. After a moment they pulled apart, each eying each other until they noticed everyone was looking at him. Tidus, being his usually cheery self, said “Hiya!” A tall man with a cowboy look said “Howdy”, a blonde with a tattoo on his face said a quick “S'up?” and the short brunette girl who had been talking to Rikku said a “Booyaka!” Another blonde woman walked up to him and stuck out a hand. He accepted it while she gave her name, Quistis, and a hello. He noticed that she looked the oldest and saddest out of the new group, but definitely one of the prettiest. He didn't hold his stare any longer then normal incase Yuna saw and greeted the girl Yuna had been talking with.

 

 

“Hi, name's Rinoa.” She said cheerfully. Tidus couldn't help but notice that she was also incredibly stunning, with raven black hair and gold highlights. She gave off a strange vibe along with a perky and gentle one. He noticed a male looking at him with steely eyes, gray steely eyes no less. He definitely didn't seem like a social kind of person. The girl, Rinoa, looked over at him and giggled. “Don't worry about Squall; he doesn't trust a lot of people. We had to go through space, hundreds of battles, and Time-Compression to get him to trust us.”

 

 

Tidus guessed that `us' meant the group, but he had no idea what `Time Compression' was. “Uhh…..time compression?” He asked curiously.

 

 

Yuna piped in at that moment. “Yeah, she was telling me about time compression before you got here. Some sort of sorceress name Ultimecia wanted to compress time, they had to go on a journey that was sorta like ours.”

 

 

 

“Uhh…right.” Tidus said, though still confused. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Rikku jumping up and down with the brunette, hyper about something. The two seemed like sisters, hyper and bouncing up and down with joy at anything interesting. He also saw Paine talking to Quistis, looking deep in thought and conversation.

 

 

Rinoa pointed out all of the new members. “The blonde one's Zell, he's a martial artist, a bit hot-headed but a decent guy.” She pointed at the guy with the cowboy attire. “He's Irvine, a big flirt, so don't get mad if he flirts a little with Yuna, it's his nature, but really he's in hopeless love with Selphie.” She pointed to the hyper brunette. “That's Selphie, hyper and a bit clueless, but one of the most kind hearted people out there.”

 

 

Tidus gestured towards Squall. “What's with him?” He asked.

 

 

“Squall, he's a bit secluded, he has a sort of shell around him that I'm on a desperate journey to break. He doesn't really trust people, nor will he let anyone know what he's thinking. He's gotten a bit better at his social skills thought.” At the last part she blushed a bit. Tidus glanced between Rinoa and Squall, before the realization hit him. Man, that's a weird couple.

 

 

His head turned back to Squall, who was just sitting back with his eyes closed. He noticed Rinoa's smile turn into a frown as she walked over to him and lay down beside him. Tidus didn't spend that much attention on the two though, as Auron had just appeared out of nowhere. Auron walked over to Braska and….his dad? Tidus hadn't even noticed his father and Yuna's father there.

 

 

Beside him he heard Yuna gasp. Apparently her father had just come. “….Father?” She whispered.

 

 

“Ya,” Tidus answered her, “we're in the Farplane, he should be in here.”

 

 

Braska and Jecht turned around to address the group. It seemed as if everyone knew he was about to talk even without him saying anything, as everyone had stopped whatever they were doing to listen. “Everyone, Auron has just told us of another dimension that has been attacked. Apparently an Aeon has attacked a city in a dimension. The total is three dimensions that have been attacked so far.” Tidus had no clue what he wasn't talking about, but it appeared that the new group knew exactly what he was talking about. Their faces were a mix of fear, disappointment, and realization.

 

 

As Braska finished his announcement, he turned towards Yuna and him. His solemn face was replaced with joyfulness had he sighted his daughter. “Yuna, you've grown so much. I wish I could've been there to witness it. And I also wish I could have been talking to you now on a more enjoyable day. Tidus wondered if Yuna would hug him, even though the pyreflies were swirling about him, just as they were when he was disappearing. With extreme effort it looked like, she held her ground, but her face was covered in tears.

 

 

Tidus wanted so much to hug her, but at the moment it seemed inappropriate. Jecht waved him over, and with one final glance at Yuna and Braska, he walked over to Jecht. “Dad.” He said simply.

 

 

“Ahhh, don't give me that.” Jecht responded while rubbing a crick out of his neck. “I can't really watch over you when I'm dead, now can I? Look, as I've already told you, I know I haven't been the best of fathers, and I'm sorry, but now's definitely not the time to hold that grudge against me.” Out of the corner of Tidus' eye he saw Auron talking to Paine and Rikku.

 

“So…why are we here?” Tidus asked.

 

 

Jecht rubbed the back of his neck again. “Ahhh, I ain't no good at this kinda stuff. But I guess it's my duty to tell you. You're part of what Braska calls a dimension. And you're dimension is under attack, Auron saved you just in time when that Weapon tried to destroy you. These other characters, their from another dimension too. And you're all here in the Farplane because the Farplane is the only dimension safe enough now.” Tidus stared at his father at the word `dimension'.

 

 

Jecht caught the stare and answered simply. “Ya ya, the Farplane is a dimension, don't you remember walking into that weird glowing force field around the Farplane entrance at Guadosalam? Ya well; you entered that same force field with Auron.”

 

 

Tidus shook his head in disbelief. “Great, so we're the heroes again?”

 

 

“Not alone you aren't. All the dimensions that have been attacked have `heroes'. That bunch over there saved their dimension from something called “Time-Compression”. But, you're gonna have to find out what that is by yourself. And while your finding out more about these guys, try to see them as adults, okay? They might be seventeen, but they've been through more than you have.” Tidus nodded as he walked over to Squall, who appeared to be waiting for him with steely, untrusting eyes.

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Ending wasn't too good, but hey, im sorta of a newbie to this fanfiction/writing stuff. But aren't you surprised? I updated! And im back stronger than before! Excellent. (Does creepy finger thing.) Anyways, review! Review darn you! Okay….how bout…..review and ill update more often…..okay…..how bout a lollypowp?