Welcome to Adventu, your final fantasy rp haven. adventu focuses on both canon and original characters from different worlds and timelines that have all been pulled to the world of zephon: a familiar final fantasy-styled land where all adventurers will fight, explore, and make new personal connections.
at adventu, we believe that colorful story and plots far outweigh the need for a battle system. rp should be about the writing, the fun, and the creativity. you will see that the only system on our site is the encouragement to create amazing adventures with other members. welcome to adventu... how will you arrive?
year 5, quarter 3
Welcome one and all to our beautiful new skin! This marks the visual era of Adventu 4.0, our 4th and by far best design we've had. 3.0 suited our needs for a very long time, but as things are evolving around the site (and all for the better thanks to all of you), it was time for a new, sleek change. The Resource Site celebrity Pharaoh Leep was the amazing mastermind behind this with minor collaborations from your resident moogle. It's one-of-a-kind and suited specifically for Adventu. Click the image for a super easy new skin guide for a visual tour!
Final Fantasy Adventu is a roleplaying forum inspired by the Final Fantasy series. Images on the site are edited by KUPO of FF:A with all source material belonging to their respective artists (i.e. Square Enix, Pixiv Fantasia, etc). The board lyrics are from the Final Fantasy song "Otherworld" composed by Nobuo Uematsu and arranged by The Black Mages II.
The current skin was made by Pharaoh Leap of Pixel Perfect. Outside of that, individual posts and characters belong to their creators, and we claim no ownership to what which is not ours. Thank you for stopping by.
nother chilly night in the Sonora slums. Another night of trying to help the citizens here drown their problems away for a few hours. It wasn't the healthiest of methods but there were precious few options for them. And there was only so much Tifa could do for them all on her own. So she did what she could. And if, even for only a short time, she could a smile on someones face then it was all worth it. All they could keep doing is their best in the end.
Of course, there was still the other way she tried to help. Not everyone here in the slums were just oppressed citizens. Many were criminals looking to make things even harder on the people just trying to scrape out some kind of life. She hadn't run into any particularly well trained opponents in the gangs yet and had managed to fight them off away from 7th Heaven, at least. That area becoming a safe haven for people looking for a moment to relax. Plans, like hiring more skilled mercenaries, had so far failed them as well but Tifa had no doubt they'd keep trying to best her. Thankfully she was skilled enough to take them on in droves, but she couldn't become complacent. They could strike at any time and would likely try to come up with new methods of attack. Tifa had to stay ready for anything. Like when she heard a scream down an alley on her way to work, Tifa was quick to turn and run toward it, ready for a fight.
Once in the back alley, she found a group of gangbangers pushing a girl to the wall. After her scream one put his hand to her mouth and a knife to her throat as she sobbed. There were three others pinning her and pawing at her. Their heads barely had time to turn to the sound of footsteps before the guy with the knife was sent hurtling into a wall from Tifa's Water kick.
"It's her!" one shouted, but that was all the talking anyone managed before Tifa's flurry of blows laid the crew out. With that taken care of, Tifa turned back to the girl who was slumped down against the wall, trembling. Tifa walked over to her and gave her a soft smile.
"It's okay now." she said. The seemed to snap back, and then threw her arms around Tifa's waist as she sobbed again. Tifa pat her on the head. One more citizen that could live one more evening in peace. That's what made it worth it.
And then she felt the prick at her hip. Tifa flinched as the girl jumped back with a grin.
"Got her!" she said.
"Wha-" Tifa said. Then she saw the syringe in her hand. Saw through quickly blurring eyesight. Dammit! That had been careless! Then they came. Coming out of the surrounding shadows came the gang in force, all grinning and ready to get some revenge. Some even had weapons. Tifa looked around her as she felt the sweat rising on her brow. Things were starting to spin and duplicate. This was bad. She had gotten sloppy and now this was likely the end of her. They closed in around her, and then the first struck. He lunged in with a pipe or something Tifa could barely make out. She managed to move her head back enough to dodge and throw a counter punch at the head she was guessing was his, but only found air. Then she lost her own air as she took a shot to the gut. She barely had time to react before something hard hit her in the head. They laughed as they continued to wail on her, but she couldn't make out much more of anything they said as the poison swam through her veins. A kick came in from the side and it's direction let her catch the leg. Holding on to it told her where it was without sight and she threw a hard punch right into the knee. It was pleasing to hear the crunch of the bone and the wail of pain that followed. Well, at least she got one of them back before they finished her. Another hard body shot sent her into the wall, where she collapsed. Tifa spit out some blood and used the wall to steady herself as she got back to her feet. Then she made a hand gesture for them to bring it on. Well, if she was going down here at least she wasn't going to go down crying and begging. The shadows in the haze came upon her and she started swinging her fists wildly to try and fight them off but she could barely manage to stand now could channel her strength to make her punches hurt anymore than any other girl her build could. the gang easily got passed her defenses and she was on the ground again.
Well, at least she had made a difference for awhile, but it sucked that this was it. 7th Heaven would go back to being unsafe, Mr. Startzman would go back to be shook down for money, assuming worse wasn't in store for resisting in the first place. Aerith would probably cry when she found out. Leaving her alone definitely bothered Tifa, that girl had a bad habit of getting herself into trouble. And on top of all that, Tifa had never got her memory back. It was like two lives being lost here. The original Tifa, vanishing without a chance to completely return. And wasn't your life suppose to flash before your eyes when you die? It didn't seem like she would be so lucky. But as she took another hit to the head, she had an image. A starry night in some town she didn't recognize but felt familiar. Someone was with her. Someone... she felt was familiar but she didn't know very well right now, although she really wanted to. The two of them were talking.
"Hey, let's make a promise." Tifa said, "Umm...If you get really famous and I'm ever in a bind... you'll come save me, alright?"
"What?"
"If I'm ever in trouble, my hero will come and rescue me. I want to experience that at least once."
Post by Cloud Strife on Apr 23, 2020 16:37:06 GMT -6
Cloud hadn't slept since his unceremonious arrival in the city, since maybe a day before that, long having crossed the event horizon where exhaustion becomes a strange clarity. He couldn't have dozed if he tried. The paranoia of survival followed him like his own shadow. The streets of Sonora did not welcome him with open arms and beneath the smog and urban decay he felt the weight of eyes on him wherever he went. Traversing the slums seemed the smartest bet if he wanted to find what he was looking for or perhaps that was just wishful thinking and the slums reminded him of Midgar and the similarity was the only thing he had to hold onto.
One of these days you'll have to accept the fact they might not be here at all.
I don't have to do anything except find them.
He tried to ask around, passing men and women hawking merchandise on the streets or running ramshackle stalls or working in shops if they knew a woman named Tifa, if they saw anyone fitting her description, or maybe a man with a gun-arm, and he re-learned the lesson that information costs money of which he had none. And though his bright blue eyes narrowed and his hands balled into fists he also knew that shaking them down wasn't him. Maybe, for a brief moment in time, it was that mercenary who first set foot in Midgar a lifetime ago. But not him. Not now.
Cloud leaned against the mismatched brick and cinderblock wall of a building near a busy intersection and stood out of the flow of pedestrian traffic with his arms crossed, thinking. Trying to make sense of his predicament. To look past the nerves and the fear and the desperate need to find a familiar face and instead come up with a plan. People passed him by in a constant faceless stream of humanity. In tense singles and conversational pairs. Fragments of dozens of conversations drifted in and out of his hearing until two words called to him like a beacon.
"...Need a goddamn drink. Let's go to Seventh Heaven," a man said to another, the pair crossing the street ahead of Cloud.
And then Cloud was following them, moving on autopilot. Electricity ran through him, a quiet urgency as he pushed through other pedestrians to catch up to the pair. He refused to entertain the possibility of coincidence. He felt it in his gut, a certainty that if fate existed this was it. The world arranged itself to send him this sign at this moment and every mile he walked led to this.
"Hey!" he called out from a few feet behind them. One of them looked back over his shoulder, a cigarette dangling from his lips, and Cloud nodded at him. "Tell me how to get to Seventh Heaven."
Both men stopped in their tracks. They looked Cloud up and down. Took in the wiry muscles and the bright cold eyes, the weathered fatigues of an army they never knew, and the swords. Their eyes lingered a while on the swords and then the smoking man took a drag off his cigarette and exhaled and gestured with directions and Cloud thanked him and took off running before the smoke could dissipate. They watched him disappear and decided to go somewhere else.
When Cloud finally stopped it was not because he found the place he was looking for but because above the ambience of the slums he heard the unmistakable sounds of a fight. The dull impacts of flesh and bone, strikes to steal breath, the scrape of a metal pipe against asphalt. He heard wails of pain, the hostile cacophony of too many angry voices. He couldn't ignore it. He felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. When he followed the source of the sounds into another crooked slum backalley what he saw mattered far more than what he heard.
"TIFA!"
Fear and rage washed over him in equal measure. He saw her down on the ground beneath their boots and he didn't remember drawing a blade or starting to run but suddenly the sword was in his hand and he was in the fight. The myriad thugs turned to look at him with staggered reactions and they moved in slow motion and everything Cloud did was reflex and instinct. He clipped the legs out from under one of them. Swung for the midsection and cracked the ribs of another. Pommel strike, broken nose. An arc of blood spattered on the pavement. He fought savagely, each swing of the blade like the exorcism of some demon within him. They fought back wildly and in vain and if they hit him the pain of it never made it past the adrenaline. Later, if he tried to recall the details of the fight, only a blank space remained between the beginning and the end.
When his senses returned to him he was standing with one muddy boot planted on the chest of one of the thugs and the tip of the blade against the man's neck. The man made feeble noises and stared at the steel and blood burbled out his nostrils with every strained breath. Bodies lay strewn about the alley, groaning, whimpering. One man supported himself with the wall and staggered out the mouth of the alley and into the street. Cloud felt his hand start to shake and he took a breath and stepped away and returned the blade to his back. Only one thing mattered now.
In the wake of the fight the alley had gone quiet. He ran to Tifa and the heavy sounds of his boots on the pavement were almost deafening. He knelt before her and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder and tried to gauge how badly she was hurt. His heart hammered painfully in his chest.
"Tifa?" he said, his voice low, trying to hide the quaver in it. The fighter of a moment ago was nowhere to be found in him now.
verything was hazy. The hits stopped coming and there was no more pain. In fact, at the moment it seemed like the whole thing had just been a nightmare and she was now in bed rousing from her sleep. Tifa groaned. She was still sleepy and didn't want to get up. Then a scent reached her nose. It was the smell of something cooking... French toast? She hadn't had french toast since... Tifa attempted to open her eyes, but her eyelids were very heavy. She managed a slight part and could barely make out a small room surrounding her. It looked... very familiar and gave her a feeling of nostalgia. Someone then slowly entered the room and walked over to Tifa's prone form. Her vision through a sleepy and heavy lidded gaze didn't allow for a entirely clear image, but she made out some details. It was a woman with long brown hair. She walked over and crouched right in front of Tifa's head. Tifa could just barely make out a beautiful face with a soft and warm smile.
"It's not time yet, sweetheart." the woman said as she reached out and stroked Tifa's face. It was a soft, comforting feeling, "Go back..." Tifa drifted back into darkness, but one thought reverberated through her.
"Mom?"
Tifa's eyes flickered open slowly as she was turned over and pain washed over her body and mind. She flinched as it came upon her and groaned. She felt cold and damp and she could feel the sticky, wet presence of her blood on her face and in her hair. Her vision was still swimming from whatever drug she had been poisoned with, but she didn't seem to be under attack anymore. As she blinked her vision to clear up as best as possible she turned toward a voice that had spoke her name. That voice was so familiar to her and just hearing it filled her with happiness and comfort. Her eyes found the source and she was looking up into the worried, and now grown up, face of the boy she had talked to by the well. He had come. He had kept his promise. Tifa's hand reached up to his face as if she wanted to check she wasn't still dreaming. As she did, the name connected to that face finally came back to her.
"Cloud..." she said softly. Her eyes filled with tears again, but this time tears of happiness and, despite what had just happened to her and the fact she was covered in blood, she smiled brightly.
Post by Cloud Strife on Apr 30, 2020 23:45:01 GMT -6
Cloud followed the rise and fall of her breathing for agonizing seconds until she finally opened her eyes. Meeting her gaze, the twisted knot in his stomach loosened. He had waited so long to see her face again. To hear her voice. Sleepless nights alone in the dark of the wilderness he stared into a foreign sky and imagined what it would be like. Never like this.
When she reached her hand out and her fingertips brushed his skin he placed his hand over hers and held it there a moment against his cheek. He studied her face. The blood looked so dark in the murk of the alley and he couldn't see where the bleeding began. Cursing himself for the wrong materia, no supplies, not even a potion. He marshaled his features into a transparent imitation of calm and his breathing was steady and deliberate.
"Sorry I'm late," he said. He tried to return her smile. He was never very good at them at the best of times. "I'm getting you outta here, okay?"
Gently, carefully, Cloud took her up into his arms and rose to his feet. He was sixteen years old in an ash-covered trooper uniform and the air was thick with the smell of mako and of smoke and her blood began to soak into the front of his shirt. He was twenty-one years old in roadworn SOLDIER fatigues in a slum alley in a city he didn't know. He was fourteen, legs dangling over the edge of the water tower under a clear night sky.
He made a promise. Etched in his heart across time and across worlds it was the bedrock of his self upon which all else was rebuilt. He held Tifa against his chest and if anyone tried to stop him from bringing her to safety he would kill them.
She'll be fine. She's tough.
Yeah.
She's bounced back from worse, right?
Yeah.
So don't think about it, just go.
By his reckoning he had to be near Seventh Heaven and by his wishful thinking it had to be as safe as its counterpart in Sector Seven. Even if it wasn't, he had no other option. She was in no state to give him directions.
He carried her out of the alley and turned onto the sidewalk and the city had changed shape between his entrance and his exit. Strangers now enemy. Every shadow a threat. The kaleidoscope of lights, neon rainbows and dull orange cagelights and cold bright halogen illuminating a new face of the city, sinister and conspiring to tear from him what he held dear. He waded through the staring. Men and women parted ways for him. For the coldness of his eyes and the set of his jaw. For the woman in his arms. For the swords on his back. He felt their eyes upon him but none went further.
Soon enough he saw the sign. Rustic and handpainted amid the sea of buzzing lights. He opened the door with his boot and hurried inside and looked for the attention of anyone who might help.
eing moved brought a wave of nausea to Tifa's head. Everything was spinning and she closed her eyes again as she allowed Cloud to carry her off. He likely felt her begin shivering in his arms, though it had nothing to do with the Sonaran chill. All she could focus on however was the dizziness. She was turning more pale by the second and a sweat broke out on her that didn't help with the shivering. As he carried her through the streets, eventually she went completely limp in his arms, though she was still taking shallow breaths.
Arriving at Seventh Heaven Cloud entered to find a dive bar fitting of the slums. Tifa was still working on fixing it up to add more charm, but it was still fairly run down. As it was only just opening, there were only two people to be found inside. Both of whom jumped at the sudden impactful entrance. There was a man sitting at the bar wearing a flashy suit, the jacket open to show off his chest. His hair was greased back and he had shades on despite the lack of need for them either here or outside. He jumped off his stool and was the first to speak.
"Hey, what'd you do to Tifa!?" he called out at Cloud.
"Shut up, Benny." came the gruff voice of the other. The old man stepped out from his place behind the bar and took on look at Tifa's pale face, "Bring her upstairs." he grunted and turned to lead the way to the back. Once past the door to the kitchen there was a small stairwell that lead up to the apartment on the second floor. He directed Cloud to the bedroom and pointed at the bed before turning and leaving the room. After a minute he came back with a small bottle.
"Here. We keep some remedy around in case of alcohol poisoning. Should take care of what's in her." he said as he handed it to Cloud. Then he left the blonde too it. Meanwhile, Tifa was still shivering despite leaving the cold. She had started shifting uncomfortably in sleep and muttered and moaned incoherently as if becoming delirious. She had also become ghost white. It was very obvious she was only getting worse.
Post by Cloud Strife on May 22, 2020 9:37:39 GMT -6
His mako eyes swept over a slum dive that held just enough familiarity to feel alien, like everything in this damned city. Midgar but not. Tifa's bar but not. Two men, one at the bar and one behind. Empty tables and that faint spilled-beer aroma that never quite came out of the floorboards. Cloud stood there with his heart in his throat for a beat before one of the two men hurled accusations that hit him too close to the chest. His jaw tensed and he felt the heat at the back of his neck but the older man stepped in before Cloud could defend himself.
Doesn't matter. Ignore him. Focus on what you gotta do.
Cloud rushed to follow the old man upstairs with his boots thudding dully on the steps almost as loud as each beat of his heart in his ears. But he couldn't shake the heat of shame and anger. An old wound, like so many of them were, inflicted on Mt. Nibel all those years ago. Scar still a faint jagged line on his knee. It was the tone. The tone was the exact same. He heard it clear as day:
Cloud! Why'd you bring Tifa to a place like this! What the hell's the matter with you!? What if she dies!?
What if she dies?
What if
"It'll be okay, Tifa," he said, barely above a whisper. He didn't think she could hear him but he had to say it anyway.
He followed the old man's direction and carried Tifa into the room and laid her gently on the bed. Pale and shaking. Worst case scenarios at the fringes of his thinking grew like an encroaching darkness. He fought them back with a mantra: She'll be okay. All he had to do was stay focused.
When the old man came back into the room with the bottle of remedy, Cloud took it from him with the urgency and resolve of a combat medic. He'd done this before, in the field, spells bursting overhead. He placed a steadying hand on her shoulder, pressure enough to try and stop her shifting, and carefully administered the remedy. He set the bottle aside and held Tifa's hand and waited for it to take effect. He watched the rise and fall of her breathing for the assurance that each precious breath was followed by another. He hadn't even noticed that the old man left again.
He reached out and brushed aside a few strands of hair from her eyes. As the medicine took hold he said her name again like a soft call back to consciousness.
ifa trembled and groaned in her stupor as the poison infected her, completely unaware of what was happening around her. She put up zero resistance as Cloud held her still to take the remedy, aside from the odd muscle twitch. She simply lay there after, helpless to fight the battle of chemicals now warring within. But soon enough, the shivering subsided. Colour began returning to her skin and her breathing regulated. The cure-all remedy was proving as effective in this world as their own. After a few minutes she seemed to have returned to normal. Her body certainly seemed more at peace. The fingers of the hand Cloud held suddenly closed around his and she let out a sturdier groan as her eyes flickered open. Eyelashes fluttered as she attempted to clear her vision up and turned her crimson irises on her savior. There he was. Not a dream or illusion.
"Hi." she said simply, her lips curling into a smile. Cloud. She knew him. How could she have ever forgotten? Not all of her memories returned upon seeing him, but she knew him. She remembered his promise. And she certainly remembered how she felt, though her emotional attachments never seemed to be an issue. Just specific memories. She remembered swimming with him in... green water? She remembered sitting with him under a vessel of some kind. She remembered hanging off of a cliff and him pulling her up. But what were they doing? She tried to think, but it hurt her head too much at the moment she stopped. Well, whatever. She was just happy he was here with her. That was the important part. Tifa attempted to sit up, but flinched in pain and laid back down with a grimace. Remedy did nothing for wounds and she had been beaten pretty fiercely.
"Guess I let my guard down." she said with a self-depreciating smile.
Post by Cloud Strife on May 31, 2020 1:11:34 GMT -6
He watched closely the remedy working through her system and as color and life returned to her it seemed to him a light returned to the room with it. When she opened her eyes Cloud met her gaze. Found solace in the warmth of it, like a piece of home in a strange land. Cloud knew then that everything would be okay. The anxiety that he carried ever since waking in this world untwisted from his insides and disappeared. Relief moving through him like a wave. So this is what it was like. He'd forgotten how it felt.
"Hey," he replied.
In his eyes, somewhere beneath the mako, there was a softness. A gentleness. Something that he never managed to fully shed or bury even when he was his coldest, most mercenary self. Neither time nor tragedy had been able to break it. Once, he'd been ashamed of it, thought it a weakness. But he didn't think like that anymore. It carried him through the end of the world, carried him on a long empty road, brought him here. The real him.
As Tifa moved to sit up and flinched with the pain, Cloud frowned, reflexively placing his empty hand on her shoulder as she eased back down onto the bed. The poison may have left her but she was still caked in blood, bruises deepening in ugly blue-purple patches. It hurt to see her like that.
"It's okay. Take it easy and rest," he said in a reassuring tone. "I'll see if I can find something..."
He looked about the room. It was the first time he'd really done so, now that Tifa was out of the woods. Dull patchwork walls and particle board flooring. A dirty film on the outside of a barred window. Typical slum digs, done up as best as they could be. He wondered if the old guy had any potions to spare. Cloud hated himself for how ill prepared he was. What would he have done if there was no remedy on hand? He couldn't let this happen again.
He hadn't seen where the old man grabbed the remedy from and he didn't like his odds of finding a potion hiding somewhere but he still looked. He couldn't bring himself to venture very far from Tifa. He inspected the apartment's sink and found no potions but he found a washcloth and turned on the tap until the water ran cold and soaked the cloth and wrung it enough that it stopped dripping. He turned off the tap and returned to Tifa's side. He sat at an angle on the very edge of the bed. Cloud, for his part, looked every bit the road-weary traveler. His old SOLDIER uniform sporting new rips and tears. Exhaustion etched deep in his face. He could have slept for a week right then and there but he wouldn't let himself think about sleep until Tifa was taken care of.
"Don't have any potions. Sorry," he said. "I'll check with the old guy. He's the one who had the remedy."
He reached out with the cloth in hand and hesitated. Then he began to gently clear the blood from her face and to let the cool of the wet cloth soothe the swelling and bruises. Slow and methodical and affording her every opportunity to stop him if she saw fit. All this with a look of focus on his face. He could have been defusing a bomb. There was so much he wanted to say to her that he did not know the words for. Telling her that he missed her or that he was worried just sounded trite in his head. Having something else to focus his mind on made it bearable. Really, all it meant was that nothing changed.
ifa remained where she was as ordered. She simply watched Cloud as he went about dealing with the tap. It all seemed so surreal to see him here. Her memory of things was still so blurry, almost like trying to remember a dream. But standing right in front of her was a part of that dream. She wanted all of her memories back in full so she could enjoy some reminiscing. But maybe his presence had started that process for her and she would get them back over time? all she could do was hope on that.
Cloud returned and began cleaning her up with the wet cloth. Tifa flinched a bit when the wet cloth touched a sensitive area, but quickly got used to it and allowed him to continue. As he worked, Tifa just stared at him. As if when she looked away he would vanish, nothing but a hallucination. Cloud was super focused on his task, but Tifa just kept her eyes on him. She wanted to reach up and touch his face. Why? Simply to see if he existed for real, maybe, but she didn't really have a reason in mind. She fought the urge though, not sure if he'd be okay with that. After a bit, the words he had spoken sank in and Tifa realized where she was. It was the apartment above Seventh Heaven.
"That's probably Mr. Startzman, the owner." Tifa replied, "We should have some potions in stock - we use them in some recipes." Yeah, a couple of those would help a lot right now. She could also try focusing some chi to heal herself up a bit in a quicker fashion than normal, but that required concentration and her focus was elsewhere right now. She wasn't prepared to risk Cloud vanishing on her quite yet, so instead she just kept watching him.
Post by Cloud Strife on Jul 1, 2020 14:35:24 GMT -6
When the bulk of the blood and the dirt was gone Cloud tossed the cloth aside on the battered old nightstand and he looked her over again. Nothing else to be done without a couple of potion bottles, if the old guy - Saltzman, she said - was willing to give them up, and if the remedy was any indication then he probably was. Something sounded funny about Tifa calling somebody else the owner of a bar named Seventh Heaven but Cloud couldn't spare the focus to think about it. He looked back over his shoulder in the direction of the stairs and he looked back at Tifa and he nodded his head and stood up. He moved like he had to force it. As though pushing against some magnetism that rooted him to her side.
"Okay," he said. "I'll be right back."
Away and down the stairs. Boots making deep heavy thuds on each step. He found the old man and explained what he needed with barely restrained urgency. He heard some distant snide comment from the guy at the bar that Saltzman had called Benny and Cloud shot a glare in the direction of him but otherwise let it drift. As soon as he had the potions in hand, two bottles, he thanked Saltzman hurriedly and then made for the stairs again, ascending two at a time, shame warming the back of his neck. It was stupid, being so unprepared. No potions, no restore materia, not even a damn bandage. Stupid.
He turned the bottles over in his hands and scanned the labels. Like everything in this place they fell into some kind of uncanny valley. Recognizable but wrong in some small way. He could only hope this world's potions worked just as well as its remedies.
Back in the room he returned to Tifa's side, sitting on the edge of the bed, and he opened the cap and offered her the first potion bottle and set the second on the nightstand. He helped her sit up enough to drink it and waited until she was done before he started to speak.
"Hey, Tifa, I... uh..." he scratched the back of his head. Half a dozen different thoughts struggled to get out at once and got stuck in the exit. "...I'm... glad I found you again. I was lookin' for you for a while."
A point somewhere in the middle distance suddenly seemed very interesting and Cloud stared at the nothing of it. He rested his forearms on his knees and tugged at one of his gloves. He said quietly, "I missed you." Paused a beat. "A lot."
