He saw her wandering around the platform of Planet's Core, alone and with care, and reveled in knowing that there would be no interruptions in confronting her. The boy was off on his own quest, and Sephiroth believed without a doubt that such a journey with such an unerring intent would reduce the boy's essence to dust and memories. Better still to have the three- he, Cloud and Tifa- to pick each other apart bit by bit like ore in bedrock the shine of a life that goes on forever.

He stared at the coiling green and thought he saw diaphanous faces that overlaid one another that formed what he thought before was the murk and gloom of a defiant old timer. Before her arrival just now, he had reached out to the energy as though grasping for a face- her face- and was unsettled when he pulled back to see wisps of green and voices that murmured too low for him to hear. He thought that if he did so, the right person- his one and only- would reach right back and hold onto him so dearly. He clenched his fist, imagining himself crushing this place, this earth, condensing all this living energy into a tight ball that would implode and shatter into stardust. He wanted to show this level of destruction to someone, a certain someone, and say I did all this for you and feel proof of his existence.

Sephiroth looked back down to Tifa, who had reached the center and had finally begun looking so lost and unsure. Even from afar, he could see those eyes- bright as fire and blazing- shutter closed and recollecting. He almost wished that he hadn't confronted her, for the feeling of longing only intensified with the awakening not unlike a sharp start from a long sleep before settling back into slumber. More urgently, however, he wanted to run her through so the rush of memories would flow right back into him like missing pieces clamoring back into their right spot. Run her through straight to that fire where he could be forged back anew, or at least half as whole, which would be more preferable than just having only substantial chunks within himself that needed the chinks to be filled for context to be right and distinct.

Cloud went on another foolhardy journey on foot to confront a god. So Sephiroth settled for this and savored the privacy in his anticipation.

He leapt down.

Tifa went to Planet's Core to think- or to search for something, to find something- and at the center all she had found was hard rock and the whirling of green essence through gaps and cracks whence perhaps the earth had been until they've been bored through from pressurized wind, eroded by the green that incessantly went up and up.

She still beats herself up for letting the witch creep up behind her. Her pointed fingernails- so like a predator's talons- hovered so close to her throat that she still felt chills running up her spine and around her neck. She ungloved a hand and placed the palm on the spot. She pulled away to expect pinpricks of blood but saw the usual calloused pads and cloth-bound fingers.

She was literally a hair's breadth away from death, and that gap was blown wide open by Kain's wind and grace. No sooner had she expressed thanks and a smile did he go away with the breeze, with Zidane in tow and Ultimecia's words lingering on the wind, like a stagnant doldrum. Kain's happenstance wasn't unlike another, a Warrior of Chaos, a familiar someone, and whether friend or stranger- and right now it's getting a little difficult to know which one is the stranger and the other a friend- it was heartening to know someone cared enough to watch her back.

She closed her eyes and breathed deep, head tilted back. She thought she could smell flowers wafting through the green-y breeze that whistles through rock. Before Kain and Lightning and Laguna and Vaan and so much more, all she needed to do was to breathe deep for her to know that someone's there by her side, filling in the blanks and the chinks where there once was firmament. It had the ghost of a promise, like being close to springtime or the beginning of a harvesting. It felt meaningful, not unlike the tales of knights and sorceresses that Laguna once mentioned to her, or the codes of conduct enacted by her actual knightly comrades.

Something whistled down from above and she snapped her eyes wide open, gasping.

In the nick of time, she leapt away without being nicked at all. In the ensuing rubble, she thought for a moment that it was Kain's spear that nearly impaled her, but a swirl of black leather and silver hair that whipped around him revealed Sephiroth. Eyes blazing and sword gleaming, he landed on his feet gracefully as though floating and lowered his sword-arm.

"Oh? I thought I would be able to pierce right through to your heart," he sneered.

"A girl prefers introductions first before a stabbing," declared Tifa, putting her fists up, loose and ready.

He responded by raising his sword, and he lifted it as though it was a light thing and not unwieldy with weight and length; she wondered briefly if it's from judging how her friends' had handled her weapons or if it was an ingrained experience she had known once.

"Do introductions still need to be in order? I thought by now you'd at least know of me," he said in a voice so low.

"You're not that memorable," growled Tifa, and leapt for the attack.

And it was like dancing, the way she would charge and leap away when you think she would go a certain way. The sword whistled through the air as he thrust forward, jabs exchanged with fists and sharp points, and there were some near misses when a boot nearly collided with his face, when a slash would arc so dangerously near her legs.

She flipped backwards and propelled herself up from a broken column by pushing up from her hands and landing on a platform above, looking down on him. She breathed heavily, exertion heavier than usual on her body as though the weight of the planet's voices started to enclose in on her. Her hand drifted to where her potion was, but she gripped into a fist and reluctantly moved away. She's not in so dire a need as to take a quaff it down quickly.

He looked up at her with those eyes like the walls of souls that surround them closer. She feared that the green would be the last thing she'll see, almost leering up at her.

"Still waiting for a protector, Tifa?" he called out from below. She nearly flinched at the sound of her name.

"He's not coming back; he left us for things bigger than you or me. He left us to murder one another while he looks for oblivion."

"Poor you!" she shouted. "Guess even Warriors of Chaos don't like to feel lonely, too."

Whenever I'm in a pinch, you'll come save me, right?

A gust of wind and he was gone. She gasped and faltered. She looked around quickly and leapt away from her platform to another. She was about to leap to another across the way when a voice cooed into her ear: "But you're right here."

She whipped around to strike with a backhand and found empty air. Cloth flapped in the wind and she looked up so to see him coming down. In her haste, she toppled over from the platform and tumbled down to the main center. Rock exploded from where she dropped.

She landed hard, and her ankles nearly collapsed beneath her. She stumbled over to what was once probably a wall, an arm propping her up. She saw him land in front of her and charged swiftly. She pushed off from the wall by the arm and fell to the ground. She looked up to see him pierce the slab of stone clean through. His eyes didn't leave hers.

She struggled to her feet, and her arms shook as she brought them up to cast a blizzard spell. Sephiroth pulled his sword out of the rock as easily as if unsheathing it with little friction shown. At full length, he turned towards her and before he charged forward the spell was complete and blizzard launched towards him. He sidestepped most of the blow, but a shard grazed him and made him off balance. It was just enough of a chance.

She leapt forward and made to grapple him. She got him by the coat lapels, face close to his so as their noses nearly touched, and she threw him as hard as she could to a structure. He let out a grunt as he hit, reluctantly so and behind clenched teeth, but his grip was unyielding. Tifa jumped and landed a foot on his shoulder, finally dropping the sword and she kicked upward against his chin. She could have launched him into the air, to render him senseless before he had a chance to recover and always in mind to never break the chain when the green walls around them became unstable, roaring, and the rocks and platforms swirled around them in a tempest.

It was an effort to stay stable, and from the corner of her eye did a boulder nearly beheaded her when she was grabbed by the shirt strap and tugged forward towards a warm body. Arms enfolded around her and Sephiroth turned so that her back was braced against rock and it was all him in front of her, close to her, and suffocating her.

A hot breath was against her ear and in the whirling dervish of the environment his voice was clear against the mad noise.

"Did you ever have friends to protect you Tifa? Where are they now? Did a plate drop on them? Did a hero pass you over, all you that Cosmos chose as her champions of light? Did that one with the spear and the wind fly over you like a speck in the distance? Hmph, if death is a better protection than life, then Cloud has found it in Chaos rather than that foolish Dragoon."

"Shut up!" she tried to push back, to gain distance if only so she could spit in his face. "I don't need-"

"Still forgetful!" he pushed her back into the wall, his looming size obstructing all from getting to her and from her getting out. She wondered if his back is actually taking the worst from the environment, what with the flecks of earth pelting skin where Sephiroth couldn't manage to block from. "If I break you more, do I get more memories? Would I see more memories of how nice it would feel for someone to rescue you in the most desperate moment? It happened twice already; do you dare lust for a third one?"

"What about you, Sephiroth?" The words came out as a harsh whisper, a sharp bite. "What're you going to do when you get them? Go ahead! Then you'll realize for every time I'd want someone to protect me, to hold me up, I give it back to them ten times over. Worlds over! Because I want them safe, too!"

She dared to lean forward to his face and growled, "Or are you going to realize that you don't have anything worth protecting?"

He glared at her, green eyes like sharp glass, like the energy whipping around them fine tuned and lethal. A dreadful, self-conscious sensation crept up her spine, chilling, and she began to lament that all she had done was to fight and she hadn't the opportunity to give herself to anyone in any other way.

"I had..." he began and stopped, searching for words. She could see him remembering, being in the throes of revelation. It was the most honest thing she saw in him, and within her fear was unexpected empathy that ached.

The core of the planet calmed and the chaos died down in a sigh, defeated, like having the wind taken from the sails of another. The calm was deafening and Tifa saw it startling Sephiroth out of reverie.

Taking the surprise, she leaned her head forward and had her lips on his. It was impulsive, almost spiteful, a defiant gesture to someone who keeps promising violence and death. Regardless, she hadn't really intended it to be an open-mouthed kiss, and it surprised them both when he kissed back.

Sephiroth cut it short by pulling away, a gasp shared between them. He was nonplussed. She pushed him back- she nearly laughed when he stumbled backwards with that look- and leapt forward to punch him in the face.

She hit his right eye with a crack and saw stars.

Sephiroth toppled to the ground with harsh groan. He brought his hands to his face to try to stifle the superficial pain. He opened his eyes, which were watering for she also managed to hit his nose and it hurts god awful, and saw her standing in a daze. He realized then that she was stricken with recollection and resented her for it.

She broke her gaze into the distance to stare back at him, eyes filled with understanding. She brought a hand to her lips, thoughtful, shocked.

"Don't," he spat, voice grated and throaty. He saw how the fight was leaving her and glared.

She brought her hands down and closed her eyes, sighing. He stood up, no longer graceful, and was more stung at how she was leaving him, like leaving him behind, without carrying any of the menace he held out to her. She made a small running leap and went from one platform to the next, leaving out of the spiral of green and rock. He was then left alone with the murmur of overlapping voices and the sea of faces overlapping. He wondered if she'll see what he sees now, with the apparent inclusion of memories.

"...That was worse than Angeal's right hook," he said to himself, rubbing his cheek ruefully.

As he flew out of the cavernous mockery of the Lifestream, he learned that much can be gained from loss, a thought that would be met with great derision from others on Chaos' side. After all, he did it when he expunged his 1st Class friends from memory, and he'll keep wrecking all he's known for all of Her.