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WHO: Tifa and OTA
WHAT: Nooot a great reaction to the executions and figuring out how to cope
WHERE: B Natural - her bar
WHEN: just after the executions, while she's on the job - backdated
WARNINGS: execution talk, definitely some PTSD, burning bodies mention, probably other death talk (mass murder, attempted execution, etc)
Notes: if you want a custom starter, feel free to PM me or hit me up at

sixflights or wildcard Tifa! She'll be at the bar all day and a biiiit distracted.

For Tifa, this is just like any other day. It starts out with her going to work at the new bar, ready for another day of dealing with people asking for all manner of drinks, another day of listening to conversations and whispers as she wipes down tables, another day of preparing for the inevitable fight. In fact, she's in the middle of wiping down one of the tables, after a patron party has just left, when it starts. At first, she doesn't think much of it. This is probably just more propaganda of some sort, maybe another cry out against the Head, but most likely it's the Head condemning the actions of the rebels, etc.

It isn't until she's finished the last wipe that she really starts to take in what's happening. It's a subtle shift in her at first, her eyes narrowing as the broadcast goes onward with the mayor. No. No, this can't be what she thinks it is.

Except it is. It's nothing short of a public execution and it's far worse than what she almost went through with Shinra. The screams echo through her ears, reverberating through her bones, and suddenly she's not listening anymore; suddenly, she's watching Nibelheim burn, smelling the charred flesh of all the people Sephiroth brutally murdered, feeling the hot breaths of air against her skin, and knowing that she can't help. Her eyes blink and she's transferred to her own almost-execution, the gas chamber she's been tied and locked inside. She'd gotten lucky and she knows that quite honestly. Any longer in that chamber and without Sapphire Weapon cracking the chamber wall, she would have died, suffocated by the gasses pouring in.

Would she have screamed? Probably not. She was choking on gas. There wasn't enough air to breathe, let alone scream.

It takes her a few minutes to pull herself even remotely out of her memories, but as soon as she can, she heads straight for the stairs down to the basement.

"I need some time," she says to anyone she passes on her way down and even though she has one hand pressed to her head and looks like she's about to fall apart at the seams, she won't stop anyone from following her or trying to offer any comfort or support they think might help. Right now... well, she needs to get out a few attacks on one of the punching bags down there.

LATER ON she makes her way back upstairs, having gotten at least some of her pent up emotions out in the basement in some form or other. Now she just has to make it through the rest of the day before she can go back to the dorms or the warehouse or somewhere else and just... stop thinking about all the people and machines that can do horrible things like this.

"Sorry," she says absently as she shakes her head to pull herself back to the person standing in front of her. "I didn't hear a thing you said. Did you need something?"

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These aren't the first deaths Tifa has ever seen, but they sure are bringing back some powerful memories. It's a trauma reaction on her part, an instinct that keeps screaming at her to get away, remove herself from the flashbacks. She can't fully and that part eats at her a bit, more and more until Tidus' footsteps down the stairs start to cut through her thoughts.

Their roles are reversed this time, with her being the one in tears and needing to punch something until she can regain her composure. For him, it had been about losing someone important. For her... it's memories and the knowledge that this almost happened to her.

"We will," she agrees firmly, offloading a couple of limit breaks in a chain. First a couple of hard punches and then a spinning leg sweep. She stops it at that, managing just to rock herself forward onto her arms and knees with her fists curled into balls on the ground. "It's so much like Shinra... Everything it does, how it thinks. It's like being back in that chamber--"

Cutting herself off at that - she's said too much as it is, but at least Tidus knows a bit more of her history than most - she pushes herself back to her feet and turns towards the punching bag once more. She doesn't have the Dragon's Claw equipped, but that's probably for the best. She wants to punch the thing, not slice it into ribbons.

He sets the glass down on the first surface he comes by, knowing she won’t need it -- not yet. Tidus never wanted anything, food or drink, at his worse. Just the pain and exhaustion, and the latter is likely what she’s searching for than the former. A release before punishment, because that’s what both had meant for him.

It’s both a strange yet understanding state to witness her in, if only because he’s been made aware of a glimpse into the horrors that have been a part of her life. Still, she's always managed to come off as composed. And now?

Well, he respects her just the same as he’s come to. This doesn’t change anything. Not one bit.

"Anything you wanna say, you know it won’t leave this room." It’s a promise, as well as a reminder. "I closed up the bar and left the music running. No one’s going to hear a thing."

It was just them, and he didn’t plan to leave her alone so easily.

Tifa will need the water as a refresher later, once the memories and trauma aren't so close in mind. She doesn't want to lose her cool, doesn't want to just be punching without relief, but right now she just can't shake it all off. Her fists connect with the bag once, twice more and then she grips it tightly with her fingers in an almost desperate bid for something to snap her out of it.

Tidus' words about closing up help her focus. At least she doesn't have to worry about the other patrons for a while. Just herself. And probably Cloud, once he hears about it all. Once she tells him why she's reacting so badly.

"Shinra almost did that to me," she says finally, her eyes locked on the punching bag. If she takes her gaze off that, closes her eyes for even an instant, she knows she'll just drown in it all. "That's the last thing I remember. They tied me to a chair, locked me in a chamber, and poured gas into it. I got lucky. I unlocked my restraints, but if the city hadn't been attacked, I probably would've died there."

The executions are hitting her a little bit harder just because of the slightly more personal nature. She has literally been there.

"Why anyone, person or machine, could think that public executions like that will really stop anything... Murder doesn't get you anywhere."

Part of that is absolutely the traumatized teenager speaking, the girl who watched her own town burn to the ground and very nearly died herself during it all. Teenage Tifa was so heartbroken and distraught over it all, so filled with rage and hatred, that she had wanted nothing more than to kill Sephiroth for what he had done. She hadn't succeeded, but even if she had... there's a difference between killing to prevent more mass murder and killing just because someone's in your way. Or because they're a threat to one's rule.

Edited 2020-01-24 03:03 (UTC)

It’s a sickening story. It’s a sickening reality. He can’t know what that must have been like, and Tidus listens to Tifa’s story with a hole in his gut, eyes closed. In ways, he knows he’s seen this kind of ugliness in others back in Spira. In different forms, different methods, but always by those with too much power.

There were just some out there -- human, non-human, AI or otherwise -- who didn’t care.

“It’ll work on some people,” he expresses quietly. How couldn’t it? To see the extremes that the city is willing to go to in order to ‘punish’. “If there’s nothing you think you can do, seeing something like that -- it’ll scare anyone. If I was still just a guy who played blitzball, it’d scare me. I wouldn’t do anything.”

And it’s one of those times Tidus can reflect and see how he’s changed, but now it isn’t the time for anything but the present. A heat taking to his words, anger before fear.

“But we already know it’s sick. We know it tears apart the people it copies…”

Disgust drips from that truth. His eyes are open again, glaring tightly at the ground with his hands balled into fists.

“It doesn’t care. This thing or Shinra, whatever it takes, it’ll do what it needs to control people, right? Try to scare us. But it won’t.” Tidus raises his chin, looking at Tifa and her form at the punching bag.

“Let it think it worked,” he almost spits out, volume rising. “We’ll tear its control from under it, then we’ll tear it apart.”

It probably should scare her more. The executions did scare her, to a point. But a lot of that was more being frightened of what might happen to other people, rather than herself. If Cloud got hurt, or if they caught him, she wouldn't know what to do without him. It was bad enough trying to find him on Gaia, when she broke out of that chamber. He could still be anywhere. Here, though... if she ended up here without him...

Her fist thuds against the bag another time.

"We have to," she agrees. They have to find a way to stop it. "I just... keep going back to all those memories. You know Midgar? How it was separated into 8 Sectors? Each Sector had two pieces, one above the plate and the slums below. Shinra dropped the plate on Sector 7. Killed everyone instantly. Just to stop the rebel group. And then they tried to gas me."

It sounds like those two events were at the same time, but they weren't. She's just a little bit lost at the moment. But she'll figure it out, get out of those memories, and find a way to help Cloud stop the Head.

"We can't let the Head do the same thing. They think they've cut off the resistance leaders here and we can let them think that. But we can't let them win."

"They won't. Everyone thinks the Head is so smart, but is it? We're all working together under its nose. The Heart--" The Heart, those dead. The derision in Tidus's voice lessens to mention them, pausing, his head tipping slightly. They were stupid, so so stupid -- but no one deserved the deaths they got. "They were careless," he continues with. "They knew one of their top guys got taken. And they still risked it."

And he'll never understand why, not for what the meeting ended up amounting to: a whole lot of nothing. So many lives risked, and for that?

"But now we have that guy, and it's only a matter of time we finally figure out how the chips work." He believes it, and he spreads out his hands as he talks. "As long as we're careful, no one has to suffer what they did. No one has to go through what you did either, Tifa."

No more public displays of power. Of fear. Of trying to silence them through disgusting and inhumane means.

What's getting to her now is two-fold. A lot of it is that she's worried about more people getting killed because the leaders got upset about something. It's so much like Shinra. But it's also about her memories, remembering the people who have died, a town burning, the plate falling, the screams, the smells, holding her breath because she was choking on gas. It's overwhelming.

But the more she thinks about it, the more she worries about the Head getting to Cloud. She isn't the group leader. Maybe she has to be while Cloud is AWOL, but she doesn't want to be. And even beyond that... she cares about him. The thought of losing him is unbearable.

Ironic that she's now having a breakdown over the possibility of what actually happened to Tidus. What had she told him then?

"We fight harder. We stay alive. And then we take them down."

It's exhausting to know she has this fight to do here and then again when she gets back to Gaia. No rest for the weary or something.

"Sorry... It's a lot to handle."

The heat in Tidus eases some with a quiet exhale of breath.

"It’s okay. Sometimes… you need time to pick yourself back up."

Wasn’t that how it had been for him, when she had told him that too? When she had been the one supporting him not with kind words or with promises, but by extending him the means of finding a way of continuing in a way that wasn’t being -- well, a moron about it?

But he had just been tired, more than physically. It was an offer he hadn’t really accepted in the moment, or been able to grasp as the real help it could be. Was. Is. He didn't want to think about fighting.

He picks up the drink then, pushing himself off from the wall and walking over to her, holding it out for her to take should she maybe want it now.

"I know it doesn’t feel like it," especially not after a broadcast like they just witnessed, "but you’ve got time. Just do what you need to."

Fight until exhaustion. Sort out her own head. Whatever she needs.

She's starting to feel better. Slowly, bit-by-bit. Thankfully, there are people like her and Tidus here, people who get it, even the nasty bits, and are willing to help in any way they can. She had been there with him in the only way she could be; for as much as she wanted she could tell him everything was fine and give him kind reassurances, she knew, better than most people, just how rough it really is. Now he's returning the favor, with support and a path to move forward, just as she had done for him. It's helping to pull her back out of her own nightmares and give her something else to focus on.

So when he offers that glass of water, she takes it, wrapping her fingers around the cup like a lifeline and slowly tipping it back to sip on it. She can't just gulp it down; as someone with a physical hobby, she knows better than to do that, as it would probably send her body into shock. Better to take it slowly, just like they'll have to do with life here.

"Thanks." His words also help and she knows the truth in them. "And thanks for taking care of the bar for me. I've appreciated your help since you signed on."

This is an added bonus. She's been lucky with her employees so far and this one? This one just catapulted himself to the top of her trust list.

"I think I just needed to talk it out. My head's clearing a bit. It's all still there, but... it's better."

It's not exactly a smile that he gives her, but there's a pull upward of his lips, more understanding than anything else.

"We're all just people who got brought here out of our own messes into another," he remarks in a voice close to tired. At least, so it seemed to him. Their own messy worlds and their own messy issues, but Tidus was glad he could at least help this much, after the distraction that working at the bar and Tifa's lessons had given him. Bar and grill work never felt exactly him, but then, what was these days? He was never going to be a sports athlete ever again, that was for sure. He didn't want to be -- not for this place.

He raises a hand in gesture as he speaks.

"You've got friends here, right? From home. You wanna talk to them? I can clean up here," he offers. "And if you want me to take some more shifts for the next few days, I'll do it. Maybe not this time," he goes on, "but...if you ever need it."

An offer for the future at least, if not the immediate one.

Tifa huffs out the barest hint of a laugh at his first words. He's all too right there. Each of them had another fight back home, people to save and a world to change. It's not much different here and at least a lot of people are willing to work together here, without too much tooth-pulling.

"It's okay," she says with a shake of her head. "Cloud will find out soon enough."

He doesn't know exactly what she's been through and she's not entirely in the frame of mind to explain calmly right at this moment.

"Going back to work will give me something else to focus on." For as much as she appreciates Tidus' help and offers, she needs things to do right now. All the better to distract herself anyway. Even if Tidus already closed up, there's still a lot to do to get the bar ready for opening tomorrow.

Oh boy, going back to work? There's a brief flinch across Tidus's face, a cringe before it turns sheepish. He rubs at the back of his head.

"Uhh... hope the customers I chased out didn't take it personally."

Did he overreact? Probably, but he just did the first thing that came to mind, and the idea of 'manning the entire business on his own' hadn't been it. Regardless, he spreads out his hands in an eager motion.

"I'll help clean up!" Well, it is his job. But also it's more of a mess than usual...

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cw: talk of gassing, probably murder talk forever in here

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