The Warrior

by Faerlyte

Disclaimer: I make no claims on the characters, settings or plot as pertaining to Final Fantasy VII and the Compilation. This is purely for my own pleasure, and hopefully that of the readers. And as I believe one of these should do, this shall be the only disclaimer that appears and will apply to the entire story.

Quick note: This is primarily an AU, but with many similarities and parallels to both Final Fantasy VII and Crisis Core, and quite possibly Dirge of Cerberus later on too. This is also an eventual Tifa/Sephiroth. You'll notice rather quickly where I have deviated from canon - this is just my version of the events had I been the one writing the script. The only time first person POV will appear is in the prologue. The rest will be 3rd person POV.

With that said...happy reading!

Prologue

Listen to the sound of fire crackling on wood and snapping beams, the euphoric screams of the dying. Can they smell it? The coppery tinge of blood mingling with smoke? Fear radiates from them as they scurry from the carnage.

They will know the monster they have created. Let them be punished for what they have done. Let them bleed for me!

But it hurts to think. Mother does not approve. I must do better to prove myself worthy, for only she is worthy of me.

It is so simple now, so easy. The last frail string of empathy clinging to this world has broken. She is my master, my queen, the Mother of all things. She has called upon me to cleanse the world of sin!

As I am the chosen, I must not fail.

Whoever bars my path shall die. They have squandered the planet and Mother. She says they must be destroyed, and of course she is right.

I no longer know these faces, though a whisper of them remains somewhere buried deep within the realms of madness. Mother shrieks agony into my mind when I try to remember why they are familiar. I must remain strong. I cannot surrender myself to those memories – they are my sins against Her.

She pushes hard for she wants to be found. The reactor, she beckons. Yes, I know the reactor. I've been there before. I don't remember how I know this as I head there without conscious thought. Mother will show me the way if I lose it.

A fool chases at my heels, hoping to stop me. I do not hear him speak for her voice booms inside my skull. Death! Death to the infidel!

Of course, Mother. Your wish is my command.

The man is weaponless and easy to dispose of, but Mother is so impatient. She courses through my veins, her fingers clawing inside me, dragging me forward. I am eager to follow and yet, my sword is in the ground and she is unwavering in her grasp.

I'm coming, Mother. Some part of me wavers at the soul it's leaving behind in the blade stuck in the ground. It is my every breath, every life beat, but inside me she burns and I cannot refuse.

My sword…

She says I can come back for it, though I am naked without it now. My blood burns for the touch of leather in my palm, but I must go on.

No one else stands between me and my destiny. I mount the steps, my vision blurry with hunger as I feel her presence close to mine. Her power is magnificent, all encompassing – exhilarating. I yearn to feel it, to possess it as my own. Together we will make the world pay.

I'm here, Mother.

I throw aside the barrier that hides her from me and smile. She is here. We meet at last.

Mother laughs, though it is more akin to a cackle. I tremble in the wake of her strength, the edge of her cruelty sharp and unforgiving. But I am her chosen and she will not punish me.

Come, Mother. Let us go to the promise land!

She stops suddenly. Something is wrong and I hesitate. Her scream resounds furiously in my ears and I wince, stepping back. Have I done something to displease her?

Someone is behind me, but I am too late. Pain lances from my chest and my strength begins to fail. An eerie trickle is in my lungs as I glance down oddly at the familiar blade protruding from my body.

The blade twists with brutal force and I gasp in agony, eyes wide, choking. My skin shudders from the chill of death with each rattling breath I take. The sword is driven through to the hilt, the point piercing Mother's abdomen.

Her cry reverberates through my very bones and I scream. My body convulses. The dread of my own mortality binds me with fear. I sink to my knees, the shadow of defeat clamping down and rising fast around me.

Impossible! Surely, it cannot be?!

An unyielding force plants against my back, pushing me forward as the masamune is jerked free. My arms are barely strong enough to catch my body. I have gone cold as I twist around at my assailant. At first I cannot see through the blinding stars that pervade my vision.

I'm dying, Mother! Why am I dying?

But Mother nurses her wound in silence. She refuses me and I am alone. The shadowy figure before me is revealed as Mother's veil no longer clouds my sight.

I blink and stare, bemused.

It is just a girl – a girl whose eyes burn with an intensity beyond anything I've ever seen. They are the color of garnets, bottomless and full of rage. Her long dark hair flows around the powerful aura she exudes, one hand clenched furiously around the hilt of my sword and the other in a fist.

Who is this warrior who bests me in battle?

"I hate you." The girl whispers, her flushed cheeks glistening with shed tears, but there is no shred of mercy or compassion in her voice. Her grief is twisted into unforgiving anger.

The words surround me, a tornado of rippling power that takes hold with steel claws. It burns my skin, an invisible tattoo that binds me to a fate I do not know. But I do know this girl, though she appears a woman now. I know her, but cannot remember why or how.

What is this strength that she possesses to be greater than Mother's? I plead, but she does not answer me.

"Mother?"

The girl's head snaps around and her eyes narrow, burning a trail towards the being that is helpless behind me. I see what she will do and my throat tightens, but I am powerless against what she intends.

"She's not your mother." She snarls, her face twisting violently. "That's a monster."

The girl swings the masamune around, and the movement is eerily beautiful, inexperienced though she is. As she lunges past me, her face is set in stone as lovely as death has ever been. The stroke falls, shattering the magic barrier completely, and embeds itself in Mother's skull. Jenova's defeat is complete and deafening, a shriek that flays skin from bone.

Agony erases my mind – would erase my entire existence. It feels like eternities and ends in seconds.

And then I wake up.

I feel it almost instantly; something is wrong. I know not how I've come to be here or why, though there is a tingling in the back of my skull that suggests otherwise. It is coming to me as I push myself up on numb hands, kneeling in the final throes before the end.

I taste copper bitterness in my mouth – a pierced lung. My memory returns quickly, so as not to miss me before I am dead, and suddenly death is not so horrible a prospect. It is my just due for becoming what I always feared dwelt within me.

My sin, my tragedy, my destiny; brought down by the girl kneeling across from me.

Her eyes are empty and exhausted as I look back. She does not flinch nor turn her head away from me. There is resignation in her bent form, a suggestion of giving up when things have gone too badly to be repaired.

Some part of me wishes fervently that she stand up again and wield her power with the same ferocity that was my end. The world needs that grace, that strength of will to overcome what I could not. She is the real hero – she is the warrior who fights for the right reasons while I have fought only for power without reason.

I owe to her what little might be left of the soul I once had, the soul that resides in the sword, the soul that gives her a strength that I could never have.

"You have…done well." It is all I can manage through the blood that bubbles up my throat as I fall back.

The darkness is comforting. It is the end of my pain – my life of nothing and no one.

Chapter 1

Steel toed leather boots thudded dully against the glistening tile floor of Shin-Ra HQ's front entrance. Their stride was purposeful, firm. No one questioned the familiar uniformed blue of SOLDIER, nor the standard 3rd class helmet and face guard. So many of them came and went throughout the day – the same one might pass several times and no one would know.

Just as they wouldn't know that the face behind the mask didn't belong, that she was an impostor among men. There were no women admitted into SOLDIER. No one would know it to look at her, for the feminine angles of her body and her brown tresses of hair remained hidden.

Tifa hated the helmets they wore. It was stuffy and hot and made her scalp itch and sweat. Her hands ached to throw the horrid thing aside, but it was protocol for her to wear it and it was the only thing between her and certain discovery.

Her eyes stared hard ahead as she mounted the sweeping staircase to the second level elevators. The foyer was empty as she passed, not that anyone would have paid her any mind. They all looked the same behind closed visors, like an army of robots – no faces, no individuality – ghosts that passed.

She hated that too. She hated everything connected to the wretched company that she had sold her soul to, but it had been necessary. That's what she told herself.

It was a chance in a million – finding a needle in a haystack – a choice that at any given moment in time, the odds of her making it were a mere 1%. Somehow, she had made it. Now, that 1% loomed so much larger as she was faced with the unlikely consequences of her success.

There really wasn't a courageous bone in her body. She needed someone to lead her, which, in a way, is perhaps why she had succeeded this far. The Military was made for those that needed to be lead.

For her the hardest part was over, or so it felt. She had beaten the physical exam, survived the mako treatment, and made SOLDIER almost without anyone being the wiser of her gender. Three people knew, two were friends, and the third would sooner nail himself to a tree than divulge the truth.

Tifa was forced to concede that blackmail did have its uses.

All that shrank to nothing with the knowledge that this was the most ridiculous, most stupid thing she had ever done and would probably ever do. That was if she managed to survive. Desperation had a funny way of transforming a person though.

Some crazy part of her had demanded the decision – a crazy little thing called loyalty with a smattering of guilt on the side. She hadn't even thought twice about it at the time. When you've lost everything, the world takes on a whole new light, or her case…dark.

She sighed within the stifling confines of the helm as the elevator doors slid open. It was empty and she stepped inside without hesitation, pressing the floor button as she shifted around to face the front. Really, there was no point in turning back after coming this far, no matter how hard prudence demanded it.

The elevator eased into motion from its stand still, ascending the floors smoothly and silent. She examined the panel with bored interest. It never ceased to amaze her how many floors the building contained. It was easy to become disoriented. She had never been afraid of heights, but 75 floors off the ground in a man made building and an elevator with glass paneling wasn't the most comfortable she'd been.

It was fortunate then that her stop was a respectable 48 floors up to meet with her recently appointed superior officer. She had been in Junon for the graduation ceremony and had only just transferred back to Head Quarters. Her time spent here had been limited before as she had merely been a green blooded recruit then, untested and unfit.

Now she was certified with a newly tailored blue uniform that marked Shin-Ra SOLDIERS everywhere. The ensemble both encumbered and embarrassed her. She felt foolish. She was not a soldier – a warrior maybe, but not a soldier.

Staying poised and blank-faced while someone belts orders two inches from your nose was not something she excelled at. Fighting wars without cause or reason, which Shin-Ra did excel at, wasn't either.

But she was not here to find direction or prove something. Tifa was here on a mission – a mission that could very well cost her life, for what little that was worth. That goal allowed her to think past the constant irritants, to retain her self-being while those around her were stripped bare and remade, and to keep plodding forward when she wanted to give up.

The elevator slowed to a halt and she stepped out, barely noticing the SOLDIER waiting in the hall as she passed. He was a good ten inches taller than she, which made her feel all the more isolated. Her height would be a problem, among a few other more obvious aspects of her physiology, but they were all circumstances she had dealt with before in the process of getting here.

Something she had learned early on in this endeavor – people saw what they expected to see. There were any number of things about her that might stand out to the observant eye, but no one would fathom a woman, so they invented something else. Besides which, Shin-Ra was so intent on erasing individuality that no one ever observed too closely for lack of interest.

The floor she stepped out on was a great deal more populated than the lobby had been and it gleamed to artificial perfection as auto-bots hummed to and fro, polishing, polishing. There were many new recruits milling about in quiet conversation. Some of them she knew from her own squadron, but she neither could remember their names nor cared to refresh that memory. Her position was delicate in so many ways and circumstances tended to subject her to the wrath and ridicule of those surrounding her.

She recognized that behavior well from the children she had grown up with back home. They were bullies. And bullies were cowards.

She was a coward too not to stop them back then, but that was another time, perhaps another existence altogether.

There were veterans standing by in the hall, appraising the newest competition as it arrived. She ignored them and kept walking. It would do no good to show how imprisoned and afraid she felt underneath the scratchy fabric of her uniform and the sweltering heat of her helmet.

No one saw her sweaty palms or the nervous flicker of her eyes as she passed. Few but those who had trained with her would even recognize her. Her muscles twitched to run to the door, but she knew that it would be a foolish thing to do, so she didn't.

The door she sought was just ahead now. She was two steps from reaching the control panel when it slid open of its own accord and a tall figure stepped out; tall, and hauntingly familiar. Her feet faltered with a visible flinch and for the first time that day she was thankful for the helm that hid her stunned expression. Of course it would be him that she met face to face.

As her mind scrambled for coherency, memory transported her back in time.

Tifa could smell the fires and hear the splintering beams of collapsing houses. There were people screaming, crying, and whimpering. And there was blood, so much blood. It was as if they'd bled every villager dry – he had bled them dry – and collected it in a river that washed the cobblestones red.

Air stuck in her throat for a moment as she blinked, the vision fading away almost as quickly as it had come.

He barely noticed her of course, his eyes – that striking aquiline color – skimming over and passed her in a routine manner, as if she were but nothing. It filled her with an irrational rage, in part fueled by frustration that he just would not die, but also because his manner of superiority was irksome.

It was only when his gaze suddenly shifted to her expectantly that Tifa remembered to step aside for him to pass. As he did, she felt a brush of leather against her arm.

Her skin tingled beneath the cotton uniform where he had touched her, and she stared after him with a palpable fury that more than one pair of eyes noticed. It was the pair that didn't though, which evoked the urge to risk everything she'd managed to achieve in the last month, if only to land a blow to his aristocratic nose. She might have done so had her thoughts not been interrupted at that pivotal moment.

"Come in." A voice beckoned from within, thereby eliminating any notions of insurrection, and she turned sharply into the office.

The man sitting behind the desk was one she should've known, but didn't. His name had been circulated beside Sephiroth's for the past few years, but it was quickly overshadowed by the Silver-haired General and the missing member of their trio, Genesis. She recognized him from pictures though.

His black hair swept up from a prominent widow's peak to cascade in loose waves to the base of his neck. He had a dusting of hair on his chin and a strong jaw. His eyes were blue, like so many others in this place, and like so many others it had the glow of SOLDIER.

Her fingers gave an involuntary clench at the reminder. She did not take well to that particular sacrifice, whatever strength it might give her in the long run. It felt wrong, alien.

Angeal – that was his name. She approached the desk, not quite the way she was taught during training, but there was a certain grace to it. No doubt she would be pegged for the member most likely to be gay.

Well, she could deal with that.

The first thing he did was to extend a hand to her in a greeting that he had no doubt repeated a dozen times already that day, "Angeal Hewley, at your service. Congratulations on making SOLDIER." He said, "I'll be your commanding officer here at HQ."

Tifa wondered at the irony of her superior officer proclaiming himself at her service when it was really the other way around, but returned a cordial nod. It was not the sharp disciplined movement that had been so ingrained into most of the SOLDIERS. She had not tamed well.

"Please, sit down." He indicated the chair opposite him as he turned to his console and rolled his shoulders in resignation.

She complied wordlessly.

"Name?"

Tifa licked her lips, summoning the voice she had perfected over the course of her charade, "Eric Lockheart." She replied. She was fortunate in that her range was naturally in the middle, deep for a woman's – deep enough to pass for a man without much difficulty; a very young man anyway.

She watched with morbid curiosity as the man across from her set to work.

Somehow, his broad figure seemed grossly out of place in the plush office chair that coasted on tiny rollers from one side of the desk to the other. He squinted at the keyboard in front of him and typed with an effort that was laborious as he used only his index fingers and sought out each key individually. Several taps and clicks later, he found her extensive file.

"Here we are." He murmured and scanned the page. Then he was back to the keyboard, poking and prodding at it in his awkward way.

Several dozen seconds passed and Angeal glanced up at her, "My apologies," he said with a wry smile. "When you've been here as long as I have, they will invariably devise some way of sticking you behind a desk, no matter how incompetent you are at a computer."

Tifa said nothing, unsure of whether or not a reply was wanted or even permitted under the circumstances. Every officer was different. Some might welcome an informal exchange of words from time to time, but most held an inflated enough opinion of themselves that attempting conversation even in the smallest measurement was an insult that generally insured a harsh rebuke.

Then she tried to picture Sephiroth manning the desk in similar fashion and couldn't do it without risking a very inappropriate bark of laughter. The General, she guessed, did not subject himself to such humiliation. That was delegated to his lesser companions, hence Angeal's current task.

Her eyes and mind began to wander again.

Angeal had strong hands, she noticed; thick, but shapely fingers and well developed forearms. The muscles were accentuated by the action of typing. She had to wonder why he was not sought after as frequently as the other members of the great trio; there was no lacking of pleasure to the eye.

He paused and his brow furrowed ever so slightly. Tifa almost didn't notice the subtle change in his eyes, but it was there. Her heart rate accelerated – something was wrong.

"You are from Nibelheim originally?" His question sent a cold trickle down her back.

She hadn't thought of this. None of her officers up till now had likely even known about what happened there, so they had taken no special notice, but it was a horrendous blunder on her part. She should never have put it on her resume.

"Yes." Her voice wobbled, caught between disguise and terror. Her back poised stiffly, waiting for what she could only assume was to be her doom.

There was something strange, almost hollow in the words that followed, "And how is it there?" Angeal looked at her with a hooded expression and Tifa got the unshakable feeling that her fate hung entirely on the answer she gave.

Bitterness swelled in her throat and she ground her teeth.

You should know, you burned it to the ground and slaughtered the inhabitants, she wanted to say, but everything depended on her not revealing what she knew of that incident. There was a reason no survivors could be found – Shin-Ra had hunted down every last one of them in order to keep their secret. It wouldn't do for them to find out that one had slipped through their fingers.

"I…haven't been home in six years." She managed to sound half-way authentic too.

Angeal seemed to accept that with a disjointed nod and Tifa got the impression that he was no longer there, but immersed in some dark and solemn memory. She had experienced many similar episodes of blank reminiscence since that day. What she didn't understand, or didn't want to, was how he came to be so haunted by it, for he had never been there to her knowledge.

Had never been there and was currently working for the organization responsible for the very monstrosity that had taken place there. What right had he to care about what had happened? What had he lost?

Had Tifa been in a more rational mood, she might not have been so quick to judge. She might even have been heartened by it. She was not an unreasonable person, despite all reasons to the contrary, but the brief encounter with Sephiroth had left her cold and bitter.

Being here where every surface was a reminder of something she despised left her frazzled and on edge. She wanted to escape, to turn back, but pride prevented her from doing so, and fear that someone would find her if she tried.

A silence lapsed that was eventually broken by the subtle squeak-squeak of the office chair's wheels as Angeal rolled away from his desk to the intricate machine on the table behind him. He stood up slowly, cracked his neck with a poorly disguised sigh, and reached for the electronic pad that was currently hooked up to the mainframe of the computer.

He did not return to the office chair, but skirted around the front desk en route to where Tifa sat. She quickly got to her feet, not wanting to be at such a disparaging height disadvantage, and waited.

"This is your weekly schedule of training and assignments." Angeal said and proffered the thin, flat screened object. He demonstrated its touch screen navigation, giving her a quick rundown of all its functions and any malfunctions it was prone to. Then he passed it to her, "At the end of each week it will automatically update with your latest assignments."

"Pretty straightforward," He explained, "And it's fairly efficient. Room numbers and passwords should also be stored in there somewhere – lockers are the next door on the right by the way. I trust you've already know where your room is?"

"Yes sir." Tifa replied, inwardly wincing. No matter how she tried, she could never get used to that suffix. It made her feel ridiculous.

So it was almost uncanny when Angeal made a grimace and waved a dismissive hand, "First rule of my squadron – first name basis only. No need to make me feel any older than I already am."

Tifa smiled despite herself and it dawned on her that she might genuinely grow to like the man if he continued on like this. Most of her experiences with officers had been unpleasant. She had come to assume that the higher in rank you climbed, the more unpleasant the people became.

Perhaps when you were at the top you were afforded some room to relax and take a more laid back approach to things. Angeal seemed to think so. Tifa wasn't sure if that alarmed or relieved her more.

"If you have any questions, feel free to ask me." He offered. "Other than that, you're free to go."

She hoped so. All she wanted now was a hot shower and a good night's sleep before she was put through the meat grinder in the morning. SOLDIER trained vigorously on a regular basis, at least four times a week, and she wanted to be ready. It was not unusual to be discharged if you failed to meet the expectations of superior officers. There were always new recruits coming in – always more competition for an opening in the world's largest military force.

Her work would be cut out for her to keep her place among the men for as long as it would take.

And how long would that be? She had to ask herself. It might be forever for all she knew. It occurred to her that she had never conceived of anything beyond this point because she never really believed she'd make it this far.

That left her with a dilemma and a sudden chocobo in the headlights syndrome. Could she do this? What was the next step now that she was here in the midst of the enemy? How long before someone started to notice that she was not at all what she seemed?

"Are you alright?" Angeal's question brought her reeling back to reality with a start.

"I'm fine." She blurted out unceremoniously. He was looking at her with an odd quirk at the corner of his mouth, which evoked the rather random observation that he had the most exquisite bone structure in his face.

Her eyes widened abruptly and she stifled the thought with a grunt. The helm helped to conceal a portion of her blush, but she had to tilt her head down to hide the rest as she beat out a hasty retreat.

The hairs on the back of her neck were standing on end as she fled the office, not daring to look behind her, but knowing somehow that he was watching her with particular interest. She practically ran past her fellow SOLDIERs as they lounged about in the foyer. For those who had known her from basic training, her behavior was of no shock.

Tifa practically dove into the elevator as soon as the doors had parted. As such, she wasn't paying a lick of attention to the person who was at that time on his way out and it was only by a valiant effort on both their parts that they avoided an all out collision.

Sephiroth stood still, staring at her.

Tifa muttered a quick apology, because that's how she'd been raised by her mother, and tried to pretend that he wasn't the one responsible for her father's death. Her gaze cast furtively at his looming figure, for he had not moved. She imagined the scar he carried on his chest and felt an eerie sort of calm settle over her.

They were oddly reserved, his eyes. A lump formed in her throat under his intense scrutiny that she forced back down. It was as if he was seeing her for the first time as something human, flesh and bone. There was an odd sort of curiosity there, which was not an emotion she easily associated with him.

There was only one thing she had associated with him and that had been madness.

"Keep your head up, Soldier." He told her calmly and his voice shook her with its deep resonance. "Head up and eyes peeled always."

Sephiroth disappeared behind the closing elevator as he turned away in a whirl of silver hair and black leather. A strange sensation curled in the pit of Tifa's stomach as she pressed the floor number and the elevator hummed to life. She had spent so long building his image in the likeness of an inhuman monster that the encounter left her feeling somewhat slapped in the face.

It bothered her deeply, almost to the point of guilt for having felt such antipathy towards him. She reminded herself that she had a damn good reason to hate him, but it wasn't the same anymore. Never mind that her mother would've been appalled that she should hate anyone, there really was nothing more she could do to him that she hadn't tried already.

And it had been five years. Five years, and not a whisper of what had happened…

The elevator came to a halt and Tifa stepped out into the hall with an inward sigh. She navigated the winding halls of the dorms with an uncertain gait. A few SOLDIERs passed her on their way out, one nodded a greeting. It would be a while yet before she built her less than stellar reputation as an eccentric outcast.

Her room was a single. She had fought relentlessly for that privilege and had eventually won, only because she had finished in the top three of her squadron. It was one of the few amenities she could enjoy in this madness – a little piece of tranquility, but more importantly it was security.

Tifa had her shower, washed her scalp twice over, and stepped out to stand in front of the clouded mirror. Her hand swept across surface, clearing the glass, and her brow furrowed in grim appraisal of the image that stared back at her. She ran her fingers through her hair, lamenting the loss, and wished fervently that she were anywhere but here in this little cramped excuse for a bathroom.

Her hair would grow back. It had already grown to her shoulders since she cut it over a month ago – that had been one of the most wrenching experiences of her life. She had only to do it once, but convincing the recruitment officer to smuggle her in had been harrowing.

He had openly mocked her, at least until she had given him a sound beating. She'd never hurt someone before that way and it had left a bad taste in her mouth, but she had no other option. It was perhaps the only reason she made it in at all, because he had relished in the idea of watching her fail and put her on the roster for the purpose of revenge.

She had not failed, and he would never whisper a word and risk admitting that he had lost soundly to a woman in hand to hand combat. Or that he had allowed her in to begin with.

No one would demand she remove her helmet now. It was encouraged that they didn't so as to strengthen their image as an army of one. She would grow her hair out again, if it took forever to do it.

Tifa stretched out on her thin bunk and curled beneath the blankets. Here at least she felt a modicum of security. Her door was locked, no one could barge in and make an unfortunate discovery, and she didn't have to hide behind an uncomfortable disguise.

For over an hour she just lay there, staring up at the gray ceiling with a mixture of apprehension and excitement. It was dangerous, maybe impossible, what she intended to do, and yet it gave her a purpose that for four long years she had been without. She had a goal, and tomorrow, she would begin the first real step to achieving what before she had thought beyond her reach.

When she at last fell asleep she dreamt of silver hair, well-muscled forearms, and her undergarments falling inexplicably out of her locker in front of her entire squadron. At which point, Sephiroth entered the scene and informed everyone that it was alright, he was a woman too.

If only real life were so absurd.

Author's Note: Alright, I'm aware that there is another Tifa/Sephiroth fic in the works that uses the same premise of 'Tifa disguises herself as a guy to join SOLDIER'. I have skimmed through it too - any similarities between our stories will be infintecimal, if there at all. I was partly inspiried to write because of that story, but I also want to mention that I had already considered this idea before that story was every posted.

Now, obviously there are certain physical attributes of Tifa's person that wouldn't allow this to be possible under the circumstances, so I'm taking some creative liberty in saying that her chest size is diminshed considerably and her voice isn't as high pitched as it is portrayed in Advent Children, in order for this to all work. I don't like having to do this, but I really wanted to write this story, so I said to hell with it, I'm doing it anyway.

Black Feathers is definitely on Hiatus. I've got two other fics currently posted that I should be finishing (and plan to still), but I got caught up in this project for several weeks and it turned out so well that I've finally decided that I should start posting and see what happens.

So, let me know what you think.

Faerlyte